


Tides

by aeruh



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Accidental Courting, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst, But just a little, Cultural Differences, Everyone's favorite au, Keith accidentally gets a new name, Keith likes to brood, M/M, Merman Lance, Slow Burn, klance, lance is a merman, lots of fluff, mermaid au, mostly - Freeform, naturally
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2018-11-12 20:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 55,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11169054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeruh/pseuds/aeruh
Summary: Keith is a human who likes to beachcomb. Lance is a merman who collects human things. You would think this meant they got along pretty well, but they don't; at least, not at first.(In which Keith likes to brood in a cave when he's upset about something and Lance is a merman with cool blue bioluminescence.)(EDIT: discontinued, sorry)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Forest_of_bread](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forest_of_bread/gifts).



Keith liked the ocean. It was always moving, and the beach was never quiet. The steady crashing of salt water on the sand was soothing to him, and he was sure that, if he tried hard enough, he would fall asleep listening to it.

This night was different than most nights, though. The water wasn't as restless as it usually was, and he hunched over, hands in his jacket, trying to warm himself by his lonely bonfire while he looked out at the calm ocean. 

In the moonlight it shone like black glass. Keith liked to come to the beach at this time when he could, and in the early morning especially, too. Though lots of people liked to have their own fires by the water, they tended to huddle in groups, which made it easier to avoid them. And in the morning, if he got there early enough, the place would be mostly empty. That meant he was free to beach-comb through all the new stuff that washed up as much as he wanted. 

He sighed and reached down to pick up the plastic, generic gallon-sized bag to look through all he'd found stranded at the edge of the waves--shells, mostly broken, some beach agates that looked like striped hard candy, and fossilized coral. Here and there among the latest addition to his collection, he spotted the frosted pieces of light-blue and green sea glass in the orange fire. It was a successful day indeed. Keith was looking forward to drying the pieces off and finding space for them on his bookshelf. 

It was probably going to happen sooner than he thought. The cracking of the fire was soothing to him, and after a long day of walking against the costal winds and through sand, Keith was worn out. He yawned, stretched, and then reached over to pour the bucket of cold ocean water over the flames dancing merrily on the logs of driftwood. They sputtered, drowned, and the orange glow went out. 

...Driftwood. Oh yeah. Keith almost forgot. 

Standing up, he put the bag in the bucket, and carried the plastic thing around by its handle. He wandered a short distance back over to the water's edge a little before reaching out and picking up a small, feather-light piece of salty wood left behind by the ocean. This would be the one he took home. 

After that, he would have turned and went back the way he had come to. But he heard a splash in the water--something he wouldn't have noticed if the ocean was as noisy as it was on normal days, but was more than clear on an unusually peaceful night like this. Keith whipped his head to the side, but whatever had caused the sound was already gone. The ever-changing waves had already covered up whatever signs of the culprit there might have been.

Something caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up, like he was being watched. But... that was ridiculous. It's the beach; he'd been in the little costal down of Altea all his life. What did Keith have to be afraid of that was in the ocean?

He rubbed one eye with the back of his hand. "...I'm just tired. It's time to go to bed."

Yes. That had to be it. And the idea of curling up under a blanket with the widow open to let in the cool breeze while he slept was sounding better and better by the minute. 

So instead of driving himself insane, Keith decided to forget the weird splash, and he went on up the beach, over the little hill leading to a path that took him back home, and in his drowsy confusion he somehow never realized that at some point he dropped his pocket knife, and it was left abandoned in the sand. 

...But not for long. 

Because after Keith was out of sight, an unusually strong wave swelled and push up against the sand. And there was no one to see a tan, humanoid hand with light blue claws reach out of the water to snatch it up.

\---

Keith didn't even realize his knife was missing until the next morning when he got up, stretched, and reached over to pull on the red gym shorts he wore yesterday at the beach. (Despite being out all day, he'd just washed them so they were clearly still clean enough.) 

It finally occurred to him when he reached into his pocket and it wasn't there. 

...That was concerning.

Keith was tearing apart the room in an instant, looking in any possible place he thought it could be. It wasn't on the floor where the shorts were last night, it wasn't on the desk, it wasn't on the bedside table, and it wasn't in his pocket when he checked again, just to be sure.

After looking under his bed, Keith checked his other pocket. He felt something, and just for a second he thought it might be the knife. But no. Just a crumpled receipt from the day before.

Where the hell could it be?? It just didn't make sense. It was always there. Unless...

His heart dropped. If Keith had somehow managed, foolishly, like the idiot he was, to drop the knife on the beach, then it was good as gone. He knew the way the ocean worked better than anyone. His father made sure--

...His father had given him the pocket knife in the first place, only a few days before he died. "Because everyone needs a good blade on them," he had said, placing it in Keith's hand, and Keith put it in his pocket, where he always kept it now. Or at least, he did before the ocean took it.

Damn water. After going down to the beach every day, this was how it decided to repay him? 

Flopping down on the bed, Keith ran a hand through his black mullet. He couldn't just... leave it like that. He at least had to try, didn't he? It was worth too much to him to just give up, and if his father knew how willing he was to admit defeat, he'd be rolling in his watery grave... Wherever that was.

Keith shuddered a bit. That was an unpleasant thought, and he was sorry he had it. 

Anyway, he was getting off track. Keith at least needed to try to find the knife. It would be a lie if he told himself that loosing it didn't hurt a little, after all. And he kind of liked having a reassuring weight in his left pocket that was always there.

So he got to his feet again, and slipped on his sandals by the bedroom door. He grabbed his keys sitting on a table by the front of the house mostly out of habit. It was a small town, and he knew everybody. There was no real concern to lock the place up, but his father always reminded him to before leaving on his trips to keep the house safe. And even now, a year later, it was just... never something Keith stopped doing. 

With the front door locked, he turned and retraced the steps he took last night. Even though the chances that the knife had managed to disappear forever were much greater, Keith still wanted to check anywhere else it could have gone. Just in case. Being careful never hurt, right?

By the time Keith made it back to the sand again, his suspicions were mostly confirmed. No sign of the knife anywhere. It was gone. The thought sat heavier in his throat than it probably should have. But he didn't just want to mope around on the empty morning beach like some sort of heartbroken teen in a romance film.

He preferred to do that in the cave down towards the end of the beach, where most other people weren't brave enough to go and Keith could brood in private. So that was where he went.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance leaned against a rock in the cave, splashing his tail around a little in the water as he Looked over the strange black object in his hand with pride. It was small, smooth, and a little round. It reminded him vaguely of a rock worn down in the ocean by the sand and the waves, and Lance was happy to say that he had never seen anything like it before in his life; it was a completely new thing to him. 

He got it from a human with black hair who seemed to visit the ocean almost every day. Lance had seen it on a number of different occasions, but it never left anything behind like the other humans did. This time was different though. As the human bent down to pick up a piece of wood (which struck Lance as odd, because there were lots of trees on land. Why would it want a bit of one that was all salty from being in the water?) the little object had fallen out of his odd, colorful colorings that were red like blood. 

When the human had gone, Lance manipulated the water a little to make it crash against the sand just a little further than usual. He swam up, grabbed the object tightly, and then went back out into the ocean. It had been worth the efforts. He decided to call it a night after that, pleased with having found something new, and went back home to his cave. 

Lance found the cave ages ago after being separated from his family in an ocean storm far from any land. Though his species did have some control over the water, in truth it wasn't much. When it came to acts of nature like the storm, they were as helpless as any other creature in the ocean. 

Lance didn't know how far he had traveled when he arrived here. By that time he had all but given up on finding his family again. It was a large ocean, after all, and he was only a very small merman. So he had settled for making the cave his home instead, and he'd been there ever since. It soon turned out to be a wise idea; it was very deep, giving him plenty of places to remain hidden and out of sight from predators or threats. 

He found a shallow dip in the rock wall after exploring the cave for the first time. It was what he was headed for now. Unlike others he had seen, this cave was deep enough that it never completely dried, even during low tide, and even though the spot was mostly out of water, he could still get to it. Despite the water level being a little shallow when the waves receded every day, it was still enough, and most of the place was completely black. (He'd never really took his mother's stories seriously about how his family had very, very old and faint lineage from the glowing jellies that lived on the bottom of the ocean. But nevertheless, Lance was never really left in complete darkness, due to his glowing claws and the scales that were scattered up along his arms and jawline, and he thought about the stories often.)

These scales helped him to see into his little hole for hiding things, where he planned to keep the strange, sharp human tool with the rest of his collection. It wasn't a very big collection, but it his, and Lance was proud of it. 

Tucked away from the water, Lance could see his small pile of human objects; things mostly left behind on the sand by the visitors. There was a strange object they liked to cover their eyes with on days when the sky was cloudless and sunny. Lance tried them on once, but it just made his sight unnaturally dark, and he took them off. He had a circle of shining metal with a blue stone set in the center. The human who had it before him liked to wear it on its wrist. Humans seemed to like metal, because Lance realized that was what the new thing was made of, too. 

There was also a large, soft black square about the size of both his hands put together, made out of the same material as the odd coverings humans wore. The human he got it from had been using it to keep its hair back, but now Lance tied it around his wrist when he went to explore, and he used it to carry any new items he found.

Lance tucked the sharp, metal tool away with these and the rest of his collection. When he was satisfied with its placement, he picked up the rock again and settled it over the hole to keep them safe. 

And then he yawned, stretching his arms over his head, and settled back into a reclining position in the water. Last night had been successful, and after spending yesterday waiting out in the open water for the humans to leave so he could search for new things, he was tired. 

Just as he was about to settle in for the time being, the sound of something scraping against the rock towards the mouth of the cave sent him sitting upright, his body tense in alarm. 

There was something in the cave. His cave. His home. 

Lance sunk back beneath the water as he hid in the back of the cave, and his fingers curled against the stone beneath him. 

His mother made sure to teach him the basics of self-defense when he was practically a guppy, all those ages ago. Lance never really had to use these skills very often, even after having to survive on his own, but it seemed like this might have to be one of those times. 

\---

Keith climbed over the tidepools as carefully as he could, trying to avoid stepping in the tiny bodies of water teeming with life that were scattered around the surface of the huge rocks. A long time ago, these rocks had been part of a mountain on the very edge of the shore. But the rough waves and earthquakes had caused the great feature to weather away and crumble. Now the only thing left were the tidepools.

(Keith knew this, of course, because he read about it in a book on local geography. But he didn't dare tell a single soul.)

While the pools were nice, he had another destination in mind. Centuries ago when the mountain still existed, the other half of the beach had been cut off from everything else. Now that it was gone, those brave enough to face the merciless waves crashing against the pools and the slippery surfaces of the rocks during low tide were rewarded with it. Even now, with it being accessible for longer than anyone in Altea had been alive, it was still mostly unvisited. Most of the people who went to the beach were families who didn't think it was fit for children, and the others were usually too drunk with the alcohol they brought with them.

Keith, thankfully, was neither of those types of people. It was because of this that he visited the other beach as often as he could, and even those few precarious spots of slippery rock he had to cross were more than familiar to him.

On the other side, it was quiet. At least, if you considered the crashing of the ocean and the hissing water to be "quiet," which Keith did because he was used to it. Huge, pointed rocks that looked more like a cliche wizard's hat stood up in the sand, covered with barnacles and clams with starfish towards the bottom where the water still rose and receded. Seashells and bits of sand dollars (never in his life had Keith ever found a whole one on the beach) scattered the sand, and here and there were long green snakes of stranded seaweed.

He was the only one on this side. It was beautiful. 

At the very end of the beach, there were the remains of a second mountain; or maybe at one point it had all just been a single one. Keith wasn't entirely sure. But, down at the end a large, black, gaping mouth dug into the rock. It was the cave Keith had been aiming for.

As beautiful as the place was, it could wait until later. There were still hours before the tide rose again and he would have to return, and Keith planned to stay for as long as he could. He shoved both hands in the pockets of his jacket, like he usually did, and he stepped over rocks, shells, driftwood and clumps pf seaweed until he got to the cave's opening. It was his favorite place in the world.

Even now, with the tide pulled out, when Keith ducked into the cave, he could still just faintly see light reflecting off of the water that flowed through the opening. His feet scraped against the rock, as he could hardly see a thing in the darkness and was afraid of stepping in a hole and falling headfirst into the freezing saltwater. He continued to make his way further into the cave as his eyes tried to adjust.

This was Keith's first mistake. 

If he had just been a little more patient and let his sight adjust before trying to push on further into the cave all bullheaded, none of what happened next would even have been an issue. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true, but he probably would have been able to avoid at least a little of it.

The first thing that occurred was a splash somewhere in the cave. This caught Keith off guard, as it was much louder than it should have been if it was caused by the regular flow of water. He turned instinctively to face the direction he thought it had come from, his hand digging into his pocket for his cell phone; his eyes still hadn't adjusted, and it was pitch-black, but if he used the flash on his camera...

Things happened much too quick after that. He turned on the flash to get a quick photo, just to see what had caused the sound, but he could have sworn he saw a pale blue glow immediately before the bright light went off and the picture was taken. He wasn't entirely sure what went on after that, other than that there was a sound he could only describe as unearthly as an unexpected force shoved him backwards, and his head hit the went rock below him. 

Keith's phone, naturally, clattered on the ground, but by then he was unconscious and it didn't matter too much to him at the moment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is dubbed with a new name, and discovers that making friends with someone who's half fish isn't as difficult as one might think.

His head was killing him. It felt like someone had taken an axe right through his skull. Or like he had fallen and hit his head on something very hard. Like a rock, for example.

Keith's eyes flew open and he sat up quickly. Probably too quickly, because he also felt nauseous for a moment, but that was probably what happened when some weird blue glowly-thing tackled him in a cave and...

Was... going through his pockets. 

What the hell was going on? This was too much, and his head still hurt. All Keith wanted to do was mope and brood a little. He didn't understand.

The thing on top of him didn't seem to realize he was back in the land of the living again. Instead, its--his?--head was bent and it seemed to be focused very intently on the set of keys Keith had. It turned them around and smiled with very white (and very, very sharp) teeth at the discovery.

Keith held still. What if it noticed he was awake? Was it going to eat him? Why didn't it do that already? Those claws looked sharp, and Keith didn't like them very much.

He must have shifted, or maybe made some sort of sound, because the next thing Keith knew, the glowing humanoid... thing was staring at him. If the creature had any gender similar to a human, it certainly looked like it was male. And he didn't seem very friendly. He had a mop of drying brown hair, bright, brown eyes, and glowing blue scales along its jawline. His had the same weird blue glow, as did the patchy scales scattered up and down his arms and parts of his...

...tail. 

This creature had a tail. A literal fish tail, all blue and pretty, with plumage like some sort of oversized beta. And, like a constantly angry beta, it seemed like he was going to kill him

(Not that betas would kill a human, but if Keith ever found one as huge as this thing, it probably could.)

The fish man dropped the house keys on the rock floor, and wrapped its glowly blue talons around Keith's neck, just like he was afraid he would. Surprisingly, however, he didn't strangle him. At least, not yet, because he was too busy hissing and making creepy singing sounds. To Keith it seemed like he was trying to voice his displeasure at being... Interrupted in the middle of whatever it was that weird fish people liked to do. 

Now, Keith had a couple of options here. He could try to make a run for it, and probably die. Or he could try to make the fish guy less mad, and probably die. Or he could just sit there and not do anything, and then almost definitely die. 

...Okay, so maybe they weren't very good options, but they were the only options he seemed to have, and he would have to make the best of it.

(To be honest the options absolutely sucked. But he at least had a slim chance of surviving. About about as much as anyone had when they came face-to-face with monsters, really.)

Keith decided to try and take the pacifying route. It was probably the best one, and he liked the idea of staying alive a lot more than dying. So calming the fish person it was, then. He should probably try to figure something out, because those blue claws were starting to dig into his throat and making it a bit difficult for him to breathe.

A universal sign of peace were raised hands, right? That was what people did in the movies. There was also the whole "We come in peace" bit, but Keith thought that was mostly reserved for aliens. Even if this thing on top of him that looked half-fish could have been an alien, Keith really had no way of knowing. 

Shifting around a little, Keith tried to put his hands up. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything. I could leave! I'll do that right now! I won't tell anyone, I swear--"

But his words seemed to have the opposite effect on the thing, and instead he flinched back at the sound of Keith's voice and bared his teeth. 

Oh. Right. It didn't know English, of course. For all it knew, Keith was threatening him and his entire family. Or maybe doing something like cursing him out and telling him to eat coral... If that was some kind of underwater insult. 

"N-no! No, no, no. You don't understand. I'm _sorry. Sorry. So-rry."_ Maybe if he said it over and over in different ways, the creature would eventually get it. Or kind of get it.

If anything, the repetition seemed to throw him off. He paused, looking almost unsure, and watched the way Keith's lips moved to form the word he kept saying over and over again. After a few moments, Keith watched as he tried to do the same, and a sound that resembled what Keith had said only vaguely could be heard.

_"Sore...ieeee?"_

Not perfect, but this guy was just a beginner, and Keith's possible murderer. He wasn't going to be picky. 

"Y-yes! Sorry." Never mind that Mr. Fish still didn't know what the word meant. He didn't kill him. In fact, if anything he loosened his grip around Keith's throat just a little. Not a lot, but it was an improvement from before. 

"Soreiee," the fish man repeated, a little smoother. He paused, like he was thinking about something. 

Things stayed this way for a bit, while his potential killer tried to work something out in his weird fish mind.

Then, to Keith's amazement, what seemed like a century later he removed one hand entirely and used it to press a claw against Keith's chest carefully. It was barely there, and definitely didn't have enough pressure to draw blood. He said the mangled word again, and then pointed the finger to himself. "...Lance."

Lance? What was this thing trying to tell him? The word was one Keith knew, but he was also pretty sure it didn't have the same meaning to fish people as it did to humans. 

Mr. Fish did the action again, slowly and deliberately, like a parent trying to teach something to a small child. "Soreiee. Lance."

And, like a child, Keith finally understood. He almost smacked his head against the rock again. 

Aw, hell. Why did this have to happen to _him?_

Keith still didn't understand what was going on at all, at least now this _Lance_ creature probably wasn't going to eat him. Maybe. 

Keith was just going to have to go with it.

\---

Apparently humans had names as well, like Lance's kind. Though he'd never heard of one as ridiculous as _Soreiee,_ it seemed to be a name nonetheless, because the human kept repeating it, and had shown some sort of recognition when Lance tried to do the same. 

This was all terribly exciting; communication with a human! And not just any human, it was the one Lance had been watching for a very long time now. He couldn't possibly kill and/or eat it after all this. And Soreiee had some very interesting human items with him that Lance wasn't quite done looking at. Like the shiny things stuck on a circle that jingled when they were moved.

Shifting a bit to the side, Lance decided Soreiee wasn't a threat any longer and decided to inspect the jingly things instead. In the faint light coming from the mouth of the cave and his scales, they shone a little and Lance was absolutely delighted. They were something new, like the odd human tool!

Speaking of human things...

The weird thin square was still in the water where Lance had left it. He pushed himself up and slid back into the water a little, the cool liquid soothing the spots on his tail where it had begin to dry out and itch. Reaching down, he found the square, and went back up to the dry rock where Soreiee lay completely still, as if Lance had never moved.

For a moment Lance was afraid Soreiee somehow managed to die despite Lance deciding not to eat him. But then he saw his chest rise and fall, and everything was fine again. It would be a shame if he ended up dead anyway, after all of this, even if it meant Lance might have gotten two new things to add to his collection out of it. 

Holding the black square out in his palm to the other, Lance tried his best to look as unthreatening as he could, and pulled his lips back into a smile. Soreiee's reaction, however, wasn't quite what Lance was expecting; instead of looking pleased at getting it back, Soreiee looked down at Lance's outstretched hand, then covered his face with an arm and groaned like he was in pain.

Huh.

Humans were such strange creatures.

Maybe it was because he had hit his head? That certainly hadn't been a gentle fall, and even Lance had flinched at the sound. It reminded him of the time he had gotten caught in a current and been slammed into the side of a rock. 

Was there something Lance could do to help? 

Setting the funny square next to his new friend, Lance got back into the water and swam a short distance to the other side of the cave where he remembered finding a clump of seaweed. It was still relatively fresh, and Lance remembered his mother using it for almost anything from bandages to medicine. And Lance hadn't died from it yet, so it was probably safe, right?

Grabbing as much as two hands could allow, Lance returned and set it in a single pile right next to Soreiee's face, so he could see them easily with the little light that there was. From previous observations, humans didn't seem to have the best eyesight. 

Picking up a single strand of the plant, Lance held it out to him with the same smile. Interacting with humans was _fun._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip Keith's phone. And his keys. And his name. And any normal life he used to have.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith doesn't suggest eating raw seaweed, folks.

Now the fish guy--no, Keith corrected in his mind, the merman, like the ones in the fairy tales--was holding a leaf of stinking, green seaweed in his face. Keith glanced down at the aquatic plant, then back up at Lance, and refused to move a muscle. 

Was he seriously..? No way. Nope. Keith wasn't going to do it. Not at all. 

As if to confirm his suspicions, Lance made an exasperated huffing sound and then leaned forward, pressing the salty seaweed against his lips. It was slimy and Keith almost gagged.

Lance said something then. At least, Keith assumed he said something; it sounded more like a song than an actual sentence, but then Lance repeated the same thing, and frowned in dissatisfaction. 

Now, by then Keith had mostly assumed he was in the clear, considering the merman was trying to give him back his (broken, ruined, expensive) phone and also decided that Keith's new name was some mangled version of the word "Sorry." But Keith knew absolutely nothing about social customs of merpeople, and with Lance's clawed hand so close to Keith's eye, the revolting seaweed was starting to look better and better.

So Keith told himself that under _absolutely no circumstances_ was he going to gag, much less loose the contents of his stomach, and steeled his nerves to part his lips just a little and take a bite of the stuff in front of him.

To be honest, he wasn't completely unfamiliar with seaweed; he and his friends liked to go to this place in town that had some really good sushi, and everyone knew what the dark green stuff holding everything together was. But... what he was trying to chew now was different. It was slimy, like he'd stated before, and there were bits of sand here and there from the beach just outside the cave. It was an entirely unpleasant combination of horrible textures in his mouth, and it took everything Keith had to swallow it down.

But this Lance guy just smiled at him with those terrifying teeth, and Keith dared to take it as a good sign.

The merman said something in his own language again, and reached over to pat his head like he was some sort of dog.

What the hell? Was this some kind of weird merpeople thing? Whatever it meant, Keith didn't like it very much. Especially because it made him feel like some sort of pet, and the idea of sticking around this guy with a fish tail wasn't exactly his idea of the best life he could probably have.

Keith had to get out of here before he tried to feed him more seaweed or called him _Soreiee_ again. That was getting old fast. 

But... that was the problem. How was Keith supposed to make it out? While he felt like he was in the clear for the moment, there was no telling how quickly things could change. Keith thought about how easy it was for Lance to apparently decide he was a friend; it could probably have gone the opposite way just as fast.

And speaking of fast, when Lance had crossed the cave to tackle him to the ground, he was _quick._ It was probably due to how fit he was, swimming literally all his life, but still. It certainly wasn't going to do Keith any favors. 

So Keith lay there, still as he could get like a frightened deer while he tried to figure these things out. He needed a plan. 

His friend Shiro was always better at plans. Keith just followed them really well; he never had a gift at designing them. His was bound to have holes. And probably fail. And end up with him being delicious merman food. 

...A plan was better than no plan at all though, right? 

Keith wasn't entirely sure how much time passed while he stayed there on the cold ground, but by the time Lance finally distracted himself with his house keys again, the sun was starting to set. And the tide was coming in again; Keith felt the cold ocean water rising a little at a time. It was barely past his sandals, and lapping at his feet. 

He had been there too long. Keith was running out of time; soon the water would cover the tidepools again, and then he would be left stranded on a tiny beach with a potentially dangerous merman. If he was going to really try and escape, he had to do it now.

So he did. 

\---

Lance absolutely loved the jingly things. He didn't know what they were called, or what they were for, but now he had a human friend. Maybe Soreiee knew? He probably did; they were in his funny red coverings anyway. He had to know.

They could be some sort of odd human instrument. Once Lance heard what he assumed was a human singing, and he thought it would make his ears bleed, so he dove far under the waves. After that he came up with a theory that they couldn't sing very well because their throats were too dry from spending all their time on land. Did they use instruments instead? Like the object in Lance's hand? He really did like it. 

Just as Lance was staring to think of a way to get Soreiee to understand the question if he asked it, his new friend was upright again, and then suddenly he was gone, dashing out of the mouth of the cave faster than any fish he knew of. 

Lance didn't even know humans could be that fast without using the big, shiny things that seemed to eat them all the time.

It took a few seconds before he realized exactly what was going on.

_His human friend was trying to get away._

That was bad. Why would he even try to? Lance had even given Soreiee back his funny little square that was in the water. And food. Had he done something? And if he did, what was it? To be honest, Lance let him live, so he didn't exactly understand where things went wrong. 

Submerging himself into the water that was starting to rise again, Lance followed after him. Soon the water would completely cover the beach, and then his tailless friend would probably drown. Lance didn't like that idea very much, even when he was trying to leave. 

The water took Lance back out the ocean, and he followed Soreiee by swimming parallel to the beach. Waves crashed and sprayed against the rocks ahead of them, and there the currents and eddies were strong and furious. While he wanted to swim along the rocks, to do so would almost certainly lead to a death sentence, and Lance wasn't very comfortable with that. So he was forced to go around the rocks instead, giving only _just_ as much space between him and them as was safe. 

Every once in a while he spotted a flash of red as Soreiee scrambled over the wet, slippery rocks, and his heart would leap up to his throat because the red of his human coverings looked uncomfortably like blood, and it wasn't something he really wanted to see. Especially with the strong water and the dangerous rocks. But he was able to make it to the other side after all, and Lance was relieved before he realized it meant he was getting away.

Even with his water-manipulating abilities, he could only get so far up the sand. And Soreiee had taken the straightest path up over the hill that he could. His head of black hair disappeared as he left, and the human didn't even bother to look back once. 

Lance paced back and fourth, frustrated with himself and with the way things had turned out. He still didn't know what he did wrong. Did Lance offend him in some way? 

...Did he just not like him?

That thought gave Lance a feeling he didn't like very much. Time passed strangely when he was on his own, and in a way he'd managed to feel less lonely by collecting human things and watching them from the water. He didn't realize that watching someone and being _with_ them were different things until he found that funny human in the cave. And then he was gone.

It had only been less than a day, really. Lance shouldn't have been as upset by this as he was. It was ridiculous. He would get over it soon enough; it wasn't really that big of a deal. Right? At least, that was what he tried to tell himself.

Lance stayed in the water for some time while the sky got redder and ride rose higher. Because maybe, just maybe, the strange human would come back. 

By the time the sun was gone and the moon has taken its place, Lance finally gave up the last bit of hope he had. It just wasn't going to happen, and there was no use in waiting for something impossible. 

...He should have been paying more attention. Soreiee wouldn't have been able to leave as easy like that if he hadn't been so distracted. 

Lance spent the rest of the night in the dark cave, curled up against a rock while the strange jingling objects glowed a pale blue from his scales. They weren't as fun as they were before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try to update every other day at most. Writing this is pretty easy for me, because it's lots of fun, so you probably don't have to worry about updates too much.
> 
> Also, I've been listening to the Once on this Island soundtrack nonstop while I work on this fic. I don't know why, but it helps. 
> 
> (And don't worry. Keith will be back.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Enter PIDGE, stage right]

Pidge opened the door just as she was in the middle of shoving most of a peanut butter cookie in her mouth.

"Sorry," Keith said, sounding surprisingly normal despite the previous events of the day, "Am I interrupting something?" 

Pidge (really Katie, but nobody called her Katie and she seemed to like it that way) stepped back so Keith could walk in, and she closed the front door behind him. Keith tried to wipe the sand off his sandals on the mat before he walked inside, but it was useless and everyone knew it. Sand was impossible to keep out. 

"Yes. But I make exceptions for friends," was Pidge's response, and Keith followed her down the hall to the kitchen where there was a plate of cookies sitting on the counter. They were probably peanut butter, like the one she was currently trying to swallow almost without chewing. 

Shoving some notebooks and a pen or two out of the way, Pidge slumped into a kitchen chair and gestured for Keith to do the same. "So, why are you here? Couldn't you, like, text me or something? Or call. Actually, don't call me. I hate calls because then I have to answer them right away." 

Keith sat next to her at the table and crossed his arms over his chest. "That's... kinda the reason I'm here. My phone might need a little of your loving attention."

His tech-savvy friend laughed a little and got up to bring the plate of cookies to the table so they would be easier to reach. "So you ignore me for days--"

 _"You_ didn't even try to get ahold of me, so you can't technically say I was ignoring you, and besides--"

Pidge gave him a look, and Keith stopped talking. For someone as small as she was, Pidge could be surprisingly intimidating. And he was too tired from his adventures in the cave to put up much of a fight, anyway.

"As I was saying," she continued, "you don't even try to talk to me for days, and now you're suddenly just showing up at the door, expecting me to help you because you were stupid enough to break the thing in the first place?"

There was no malice in her words, but they still made Keith shift a little uncomfortably. He wasn't exactly eager to share what had happened with anyone else, simply because it was too weird for him to wrap his head around completely, and he was sure no one else would believe him. 

"...If it helps," Keith said awkwardly, "I technically didn't break it. The water did."

Pidge just stared at him. "You dropped it in the ocean?"

"It... fell in the water, yeah," he replied, phrasing his sentence carefully. 

"In all of the years I've known you--which is a lot of years, by the way--never once have you been stupid enough to do something like that. Which, to be honest, isn't very difficult to do, because it takes some sort of special lack of common sense to do something that dumb. And despite what most people might think, you're not even close to that level--"

"Thanks," Keith said, interrupting her a second time. "So... can you fix it? You know I can't really afford another one."

Pushing her glasses up a bit, Pidge sighed. "How long was it left in the water?"

"...A couple of hours, maybe?" Keith guessed as he felt his face heat up a little in embarrassment. 

"A couple of _hours??_ What were you even _doing_ down at the beach that was so important you forgot you dropped your phone in the ocean for _hours?_ I take back what I said before. Your idiocy is astounding." Pidge was using hand motions to emphasize her little speech by the time she was done.

He really didn't know how to respond in a way that wouldn't make the current situation worse. "So... can you fix it?"

Pidge reached for another cookie. "To be honest, it's probably toast. But if you really want, I could give it a shot."

She held the hand that wasn't busy with a cookie out to him. Keith dug a hand into his pockets, and pulled out his wallet, reaching for the money he had folded up and--

"What are you doing? I need the phone, _duh._ When have I ever asked you for any sort of payment when I do these things?"

If it was possible, Keith blushed more. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry," he said, and reached a hand into his other pocket, and that was when he remembered...

...He had left the phone in the cave. With the merman. _How could he have forgotten?_

"Um..." Keith mentally scrambled around, trying to put a sentence together what wasn't as bad as the truth. "I... actually don't have the phone on me."

"You're kidding," Pidge deadpanned. "Where is it, then? Your house?"

"...Maybe?" Keith replied, because that was probably better than telling her no. "And... speaking of which, I can't get into the house, either. I... lost my keys." 

He could practically feel all the faith she ever had in him vanishing into the air as Pidge leaned forward and rested her head on the table. Keith sat there, still as he could be and completely silent because he was afraid of doing something that would make the situation worse... if that was possible. 

After a very long time, Pidge seemed capable of speaking again. She didn't move her head from the table, but instead she jabbed her thumb over her shoulder in the general direction of the hall. "You know where the guest room is. You can stay here tonight. I'll find some old clothes for you to wear. Now go shower, because you smell like seaweed."

Keith stood up and did as he was told without another word.

\---

The next day it took a lot for him to return to the beach. He really didn't want to; and could anyone blame him? 

But Lance had his house keys still, and his phone. Keith needed both of them back, even if the phone was long gone by now. So he told himself to man up, and slung a messenger bag he borrowed from Pidge over his shoulder before going back in the direction of the tidepools. 

Part of his mind wanted to believe that the events of yesterday hadn't happened; after all, how could they? Merpeople didn't exist other than in dumb cartoons and fantasy books. For him to have met one (and been accidentally renamed and fed seaweed by the same one) was... just impossible.

But he had a sore spot on the back of his head, and when Keith pressed his hand against it he was reminded of the flash of pale blue light and unearthly singing. 

It had to be real.

Unless he was just hallucinating because he slipped in the cave and hit his head, and everything had just been a dream? It was a rather appealing thought, but he found it hard to believe. Strangely more so than idea of the merman being real. 

By the time Keith made it across the tidepools, he was starting to get nervous. What if Lance hated him now, and just saw him as some sort of threat? Or a meal? After all, he just ran off when Lance had seen him as more of a friend than anything else. Keith doubted he had the same views now.

He couldn't blame him, though. Not really.

It was as dark in the cave as it had been the day before. But Keith actually thought a little beforehand this time, and he dug out a miniature blue flashlight, pressing the button to turn it on. He held the beam of light at his feet so he could see where he was stepping. 

There was no sign of the merman. Had he left? 

"...Lance?" It was strange saying his name out loud. "Lance, buddy, are you there? Hello?"

Keith heard something splashing quietly in the water behind him, and when he turned around there Lance was, up on the rock with his long fish tail trailing in the water. Unlike yesterday, where Lance hadn't hesitated to get as close to him as he could, the merman kept a few feet of distance between them. He was tense and still, like an animal ready to flee at a moment's notice, and his eyes looked distrustful and wary. 

Carefully and slowly, Keith lowered himself until he was kneeling on the rock ground. It made his knees hurt, but he tried to ignore it for the time being. 

"Lance," Keith said, trying to sound as unthreatening as possible, "I'm..." He was about to say "sorry" before he remembered how well that had worked out for him yesterday.

Instead of saying anything, Keith decided stay quiet and reach into the messenger bag. Lance inched back a little and still refused to say anything, but continued to watch him like he was waiting for something to go wrong.

Altea was really more of a tourist trap than anything. Thankfully, this meant there was an abundance of gift shops, and it hasn't been very difficult for Keith to find something that he hoped would appeal to the merman's apparent curiosity. 

The first thing he held out to Lance was a necklace. It wasn't very impressive; at least, that was what Keith thought, but the beads strung on the chain were glass and glowed a faint green if they were left in the light long enough. He had been sure to leave it in the sun for more than an hour before putting it in the bag to carry all the way down to the beach.

Keith had chosen this specifically because it reminded him of the glowing scales the decorated Lance's arms, and it seemed to work. Lance had moved forward a little, and looked like he wanted to take it, but was hesitating. He held the necklace out a little further assurance. 

That did the trick. Long, glowing blue claws reached out and snatched the piece of jewelry quickly. Lance held it in both of his hands, close to his face as he inspected each green bead at a time. Then he seemed to relax, just a little, and Keith could have sworn he saw a faint smile.

He presented the second gift next. These couldn't be found at a gift shop; Keith had to go to the next town over to get them. 

Keith held out a set of keys pinched between his thumb and forefinger. They were uncut, and the cashier had looked at him funny when he paid for them, especially considering one was pink with rhinestones and Hello Kitty's blank face and the other was Yoda. But he had chosen them specifically because they were colorful and flashy. The key ring was important, too; he shook his hand lightly, and pieces of metal made a jingling sound that echoed in the cave.

That _really_ caught Lance's attention then, and Keith was glad he'd decided on the keys. He remembered how fascinated Lance had been with his yesterday. Lance didn't hesitate nearly as much this time, and he learned forward eagerly to take them from Keith, wrapping his hand around them tightly as if he was afraid they would vanish. 

When that was over, Keith sighed in relief. So that had worked, at least. Now he just had to figure out some way to get his phone and--

Lance was gone in a flash, slipping back into the water. It happened so fast Keith didn't even have any time to react, and when he did he cursed loudly. And after all the work he'd gone through, too. What was he going to do now?

Just as Keith had risen from his knees to stand again, the familiar blue glow returned. Keith watched as Lance swam up, popped his head above the water, and said his mistaken name once before leaving his own set of keys and ruined phone at his feet. Then Lance was gone again. He swam back out to the open ocean, and Keith was left alone in the cave.

He stood there for a minute or two, just in case Lance came back a second time, and when he didn't Keith picked up the objects he had been after.

It had gone just about as well as Keith could have hoped. He put the phone and the keys in his borrowed bag, aimed the flashlight at his feet again, and began the long walk back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was just really excited about writing this chapter, because Pidge is a favorite of mine.
> 
> (Also, Keith can be forgetful)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance argues with birds.

Lance was lying across a rock with the string of glowing-things in his hands. He had entertained himself the last few days by playing with them, and it hadn't taken long for him to figure out how it all worked; if he brought it with him while sunning himself once a day, the little spheres on the string would glow green when he returned to the cave. Or cupped his hands around them and brought them close to his eye. That was what he was currently doing.

They were amazing; he'd gotten into the habit of taking them everywhere he went, keeping them around his neck like the shark tooth. 

Overhead, Lance heard the sound of wings. He sighed, being just a little dramatic because he was alone and there was no one to judge him, and pushed himself up with his arms to see the if the unwelcome visitor was who Lance thought it was.

Sure enough, above him was an displeased seagull. It squawked indignantly at him, perching on the edge of the rock and ruffling its feathers to make itself seem larger. Lance had been dealing with particular bird for days now; it kept trying to make the rock its home, despite Lance getting to it _first._ It was his sunning rock; it belonged to him. 

Like before, Lance forced the thing to leave with a hiss. But because the stupid bird kept returning, he decided to spice things up a little this time. The furious seagull squawked again, and then took off when Lance slapped his tail against the water with expert precision and the feathered creature was throughly soaked. He would do it again tomorrow when the seagull returned.

With a self-satisfied smile, Lance stretched out across the rock again. He put the string of glowing spheres around his neck and trailed his hands in the water. The sun was warm and soothing, and he would probably have been content to spend the rest the rest of the day like that if it didn't mean he would dry out.

It was no wonder humans enjoyed being in the sun. 

Did Soreiee like it, too?

Lance frowned and poked at his reflection on the water. The new string he wore and the colorful jingling objects had been gifts from the human, but he hadn't seen him since that day. 

The second incident in the cave was tense and uncomfortable; Lance didn't know what to expect, or what Soreiee would try to do, considering he had run from him the day before. As far as Lance knew, _he_ could be a predator. So when he came back to the cave with the strange beam of light and the black bag, Lance was understandably cautious.

But Soreiee didn't try to harm him. Instead he gave him gifts. 

Was it a form of apology? Humans were so _strange._ Lance didn't understand anything about them.

Lance accepted the gifts, of course; how could he not? But it left with him feeling like he had to do something in return, so he left quickly, and came back to give Soreiee the two things he had left behind; the jingly metal pieces and the funny black square. It didn't seem like enough, though, because they had been his in the first place; they weren't new. 

That was why he left the second time, to find something more suitable. But it took longer than he would have liked. By the time he found something good enough--a full sand dollar, dead and bleached white but unbroken--Soreiee had left.

If anything, it hurt worse the second time, because he had returned despite Lance's worries, only to leave again. 

Lance had taken to avoiding the beach just about every chance he had, and only retreating to the cave when he had to at night. The rest of the day was spent either on his rock or around it, fighting with birds and eating shellfish under the water. 

Aside from the glowing things on the string, this new schedule was getting boring quickly. And while it meant he avoided ever coming across Soreiee on the beach, it also left him with little to do. 

Well... maybe breaking his own rule just once wouldn't hurt. Right?

Slipping off the rock (and mentally threatening the seagull with death if it dared to return while he was away) Lance got back into the water and took off in the direction of the beach. He didn't want to get too close; not that he really had to, anyway, because he didn't have to get too near to the shore to get a good look at the beach.

When his head popped up above the water again, he was still far away to avoid being noticed by any of the humans on the sand. He swam around for a little while, eventually stopping to watch a group of them as they were busy playing some strange human game that involved throwing a tiny white sphere at each other. 

There were four humans in total, and it was easy to tell them all apart just by the color of their coverings. There was a little one covered green, a rounder one in yellow, and a tall, larger one in black. And... one red human that looked startlingly familiar.

Diving under the water, Lance cursed the gods. _Of course, of all the humans that could have been there today, it was_ him. 

Lance hovered in one spot for a moment, arms crossed over his chest as he scowled at a jellyfish floating aimlessly in the current. He had a rather strange mix of emotions at the moment, and Lance had no clue what to do about any of them.

And then he got an idea.

\---

Looking back, it was childish. Lance always liked to think of himself as mature, but that didn't change the fact that his action was childish all the same.

It was incredibly satisfying, though. So that was mostly what made it worth it.

Soreiee had his back to the water. Lance swam up as close as he dared, his eyes barely above the surface. His target was busy talking to the other human in black to notice anything strange happening. Lance smiled to himself a little, and then he pushed his arms out and told the waves to do the same.

Just like it had many times before, the ocean listened. It swelled and crashed on the sand as if a great force was shoving it--which was more or less what happened--and the strength of the water caught Soriee off guard. His arms flailed helplessly as he went backwards and fell into the water with a shout.

The human in black yelled something: _Keith,_ Lance thought he said, but he didn't know what it meant. 

From further up the beach, the little one in green started yelling too, but without the same concern as the one in the black. Lance still didn't know what the small human was saying, but he recognized the tone easily; nagging. It reminded him of the way his mother would scold him when he wandered off to play with the sharks. 

Giving a trilling little laugh, Lance dove back under the ocean. Soreiee got what he deserved, after leaving and ignoring him like that; it was only fair. 

Lance swam back towards his rock (bird-free, thankfully) his heart feeling lighter, but only a little. It still stung, especially seeing him on the beach. Why would his human be _there_ and not visit him? What had Lance done? 

Maybe it was the "gifts" he'd tried to give. Was giving a human something that already belonged to them seen as an insult? Was that why he left a second time? 

Lance ran his claws through his hair; but he _tried_ to find something better, and by then it was too late, because Soreiee was already gone again. It wasn't Lance's fault. He didn't know. 

In the grand scheme of things, Lance hadn't really been avoiding the beach these past couple of days because he was afraid of seeing his human again. Simply put, Lance _didn't want to see him._ There was a difference, at least in his mind. He was wounded and upset, and while he didn't necessarily _hate_ his strange friend, Lance definitely didn't want to deal with him, especially if he was just going to run off again. 

It couldn't stop Lance from thinking about him, but still. 

But knocking him over in the water like that had been fun. If Lance ever saw him on the beach again, he would probably do the same thing. Because Lance had tried to do his best to be friendly, and for his efforts all he got was the string of spheres around his neck and his own jingly metal pieces, so didn't he deserve it?

(Not that he was complaining about the two new human things, because they were wonderful and he adored them to the end of the ocean and back, but what he has really wanted was a friend.)

So, yes, it was petty. And childish. But just a little while ago Lance had been fighting with a bird, so he didn't really have any standards set for himself to disappoint in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was all Keith last time, so this chapter is Lance deciding to be bitter about things.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And most of the others make an appearance (finally.)

Keith tried very hard to avoid the beach after all of that, but it was his friends who ended up forcing him to join them days after he told himself he was never going there again.

To be specific, it was Hunk who got him to give in. 

"You always go down there alone, man," he had said. "Doesn't it get lonely? Or boring? C'mon, go with us just this once."

It was all Hunk's fault, Keith decided as he fell backwards into the freezing ocean. Telling that guy "no" to anything was downright impossible, and he knew it.

...Okay, so maybe it wasn't _all_ Hunk's fault, because there were also those signs up over the hill in the parking lot. The ones that say, for example, "Never turn your back on the ocean"? Because of sneaker waves and that fun stuff. The ones that no one actually read, Keith included.

Well, look at where that got Keith now. He would have to start looking at them more often. 

_"Keith!"_ That was Shiro, overprotective of his friends as always, running towards him before Keith even realized what was going on. Shiro was leaning over him, hand out as the water receded and Keith lay on his back in the sand, sprawled out like an idiot. 

"Your new phone--the one _I gave you, by the way--_ better not have been in your pocket," Pidge called from further up the beach, holding a bat in one hand. 

Taking Shiro's hand gratefully, Keith hauled himself to his feet. "I put it in a ziplock bag this time, calm down," he replied. He brushed the older man's hands away as he tried to get rid of the wet sand stuck to his clothes.

"That was weird," Hunk said. He tossed a baseball up in the air in his hand that wasn't holding the mitt. "Just came up out of nowhere. Does the ocean have it out for you?"

Keith shrugged and picked a stray leaf of seaweed out of his hair. It made him feel a little squeamish, and he flung it back into the water before he could think about it any more. "Maybe. Or maybe the universe is giving me a sign that I should stop hanging out with dorks like you."

"Harsh."

Pidge laughed, and then she and Hunk continued their lighthearted banter as Shiro looked him over. "You're sure you're alright?"

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Keith nodded. "It's just water. We're at the beach. It happens."

"I just--"

"It was a _wave,_ Shiro," Keith said stubbornly. "You're overreacting, I'm fine. See? Nothing broken. I just need a shower." He held his arms out for emphasis. 

Shiro ran a hand through his hair. "Fine, okay. That wave just came out of nowhere. We were all caught off guard."

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Keith dug into the sand with the toe of his shoe. "That's kinda what happens," he said. And then, to prove the point that he wasn't dying, Keith knelt down to scoop up a quick handful of water and throw it at his friend's face. Shiro sputtered as Keith took advantage of the situation and ran off down the beach to get away.

He stopped when he reached the tidepools. 

For a moment, Keith had been prepared to climb over the rock and hide out in his usual spot; but he remembered, and froze in place with one hand pressed against the stone. 

Keith didn't want to go to the cave. He probably never would again. 

...But if the merman lived there, then he should be just fine at the tidepools, right? It had been a long time since Keith actually took the time to look at them, and he always liked watching the crabs crawl around sideways. 

So that was what Keith did. He climbed up on top of the rocks, slowly for once, and walked carefully a little ways before finding a spot to stay in. With his back to the cave, Keith crouched down and peered into a tiny body water. Purple anemones that looked like flowers dotted the bottom of the pool, and there were a couple of tiny starfish here and there. 

He poked at the water lightly, being careful not to touch any of the creatures, and watched with a smile as a black crab raced around like an aquatic spider. 

Every once in a while, tiny fish would dart out from under the shadow of an anemone. Keith watched the way it wiggled and moved its fins in the water, and was reminded of a larger creature in the cave behind him that moved in much the same way. 

Keith glanced over his shoulder quickly. 

At this point, he had more or less gotten used to the fact that the events in the cave weren't just pieces of his imagination. He had faint scratches on the palms of his hands from when he had run off, climbing over the rocks he was on now and scraped the skin open on a couple of barnacles. His old phone, beyond repair and useless, sat on his desk at the house. He found himself staring at it when he couldn't sleep at night. 

Despite telling himself he was never going to go back there again, Keith suddenly wanted to see Lance again. Now that he had time to get used to the fact that there was a _merman_ who made himself at hime in Keith's favorite place to hide away, he wanted to know more. 

Even it was dangerous; after all, he probably insulted him, even if it was accidental. 

As if that ever stopped Keith from doing something stupid before.

\---

Lance heard him before he saw him; humans were always unbelievably loud. 

At first he had been unbelievably excited. And the he remembered he was going to hold a grudge, and Lance's smile became a frown.

Poking his head above the water, Lance watched as Soreiee crossed the sand and was headed towards the cave. Every once in a while he would put his hands around his mouth and yell Lance's name. 

_He was looking for him._

Probably to run away again.

Letting air escape through is teeth in an annoyed hiss, Lance swam closer up to the water. He used the waves to push him further up the shore, and ended up at the human's feet.

Soreiee gave a startled shout and fell on his back for the second time that day. Laughing quietly, Lance dug his claws in the sand and curled his tail around himself. It was amusing to watch him fall, waving his arms around and yelling like a seagull. 

Lance let the smile slip from his face when Soreiee pushed himself back up into a sitting position and they made eye contact. The merman scowled, being sure to make his displeasure shown, and spoke sharply in his own language. 

_Stupid human. I don't want you here anymore, I should have eaten you in the cave when I had the chance._

Of course, Soreiee didn't have a single clue what he was saying, but Lance hoped the tone was clear enough. 

The human put his hands out in front of him, and said something in his tongue. Lance couldn't understand anything except his own name, but it sounded like he was trying to be apologetic. It was too bad Lance simply couldn't understand what him, or Soreiee didn't know his language.

On second thought, that was a bad idea. He remembered how humans couldn't sing like his kind could, and considering singing made up a large part of their communication, a human trying to speak it would probably one of the worst things in the ocean. And Lance had seen plenty of terrible things there already. Like anglar fish.

But... it could still work the other way around, couldn't it?

Lance's facial expressions must have given away the fact that he wasn't paying attention anymore (usually a dangerous thing to do, but he doubted Soriee could even hurt himself, let alone a much larger creature like him.) Soreiee had stopped trying to talk, and instead sat still to watch him warily. Under normal circumstances Lance would probably have taken that as an offense, but then he remembered how he had been hissing and yelling at him just moments before. So it wasn't really all that unfounded.

Huffing in irritation, Lance slapped the water with his tail harshly. Great. Now that he got the idea in his head, it was never going to go away. And it was driving him _absolutely insane_ that Soreiee didn't have the slightest clue what he was saying. 

Lance wanted him to know. It was all his fault, he was a stupid human, and there seemed to be only one way Lance was going to be able to get it through to his little brain.

He hissed one last time, annoyed, and took off back into the water without looking back. Soreiee was left sitting dumbfounded on the beach, but Lance had more important things to focus on. Like trying to figure out how he was going to learn an entire language just to throughly chew him out. 

_The things he did for this human, honestly._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance is determined to learn an entire language just to yell at him. Which is reasonable, I think.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone ask for more Pidge?

It was, surprisingly, not as windy as usual down at the beach. That was how Pidge determined it was going to be a good day, and she hauled her notebooks and (only most of) her pens down to the water.

There was work to be done.

Specifically, cataloging as many species as she could find down at the tidepools; they might have been one of Keith's favorite spots, but if he thought he owned them, there was going to be trouble. There hadn't been a calm day like this in ages. The Altea beach was always windy, and Pidge was paranoid about loosing pages of her notes because of it. Or loosing hold of them only for them to be ruined by the water. Or...

To get to the point, it was usually just too risky to bring her beloved and treasured notebooks down to the water on a normal day. But on days like this, when the sun was shining bright and the wind was just about nonexistent, her worries could be cut almost in half. Pidge couldn't loose an opportunity like this.

All of the things she needed were shoved with care into the bag Keith borrowed days ago. He never really said why he needed it, but Pidge knew him well enough to understand that it was important. Mostly because he wasn't telling her what it is; he never tells his friends _anything_ if it's about something important. 

Pidge huffed at the thought. Keith wasn't with her today, though. He had to work, and she probably wouldn't have invited him anyway. There was too much for her to do.

The beach was busier than usual because of the good weather, but it was just about as empty as always down at the pools. Pidge smiled to herself as she clambered up the rocks, trying to avoid the patches of clams and barnacles doing their own filter-feeding thing. 

Those guys were cool. Pidge liked them a lot because they lived in shells and could hide when they wanted to. Sometimes she wished she could do the same, because people were exhausting. 

Once she made it to the top, Pidge crouched down to stare into a pool. She pulled out one of her notebooks, the one dedicated to the tidepools that she was currently trying to fill, and flipped it open to where she left off last. There were only a few species listed there, and she had lots to add. It was time to focus. 

Time passed strangely while she worked, going between a field book in one hand, the notebook in her lap, and the tidepools in front of her. Somehow she managed it without dropping anything, which was a feat in itself. Pidge wasn't sure how long she was there, but at some point she started talking to a little gray crab that liked to wander back and fourth as it looked for food. She ended up naming it Rover because it never sat still, and also just because she could. 

"I heard somewhere that jellyfish and anemones are basically like cousins," Pidge was telling Rover as she sketched a little, tiny white starfish on the page in front of her. "I don't know if it's true. But both of them are cool I guess, and if you flip one of them over then you can kinda--"

If it had been windy like a normal day, Pidge wouldn't have noticed anything different. But there was no wind this time, and she could have sworn she heard something scrape on the rocks. But that had to be impossible, because there was no one else anywhere around. 

There it was again--a quiet scuffing sound, like something being dragged against the rock... Pidge put her one-sided conversation with Rover the Crab on hold so she could investigate. Mysteries were one of Pidge's many weaknesses; she just couldn't let one go unsolved.

Clutching her books to her chest, Pidge got to her feet and tried to lean over the edge of the rocks as carefully as she could. Slipping and falling into the water would be bad; ruining her notebooks would be even worse. 

Despite her caution she almost ended up in the water anyway because something jumped out in front of her and she screamed, nearly loosing her footing. 

It was because of pure luck that she fell backwards instead, managing to live another day. The fall hurt, considering the suffice beneath her was hard rock, but at the moment that was the least of her problems.

A person--he couldn't have been much more than a few years older than Pidge--was just about as close to her face as he could possibly get. Somehow he managed to avoid getting smashed to death by the currents, even though she had no idea how. Droplets of saltwater rolled down his face and onto her clothes as he reached out... and took off her glasses.

"Excuse me," Pidge said with clear annoyance, "But I kind of need those. You know, to _see?"_

The now-blurred person in front of her seemed to hesitate, like he was putting all of his effort into understanding what she said. Eventually he said something, but Pidge was only irritated even more when he just copied her.

"...Ssseee." 

Pidge cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah. Now give them back."

When he didn't hand the glasses back over to her, Pidge decided to take matters back into her own hands. Reaching out, she snatched them from the stranger, and that was when she noticed his nails were... unnaturally long and glowing blue.

That was odd, to say the least. 

Pushing the glasses back up the bridge of her nose where they belonged, Pidge took her first good, hard look at the weirdo in front of her. And then, when she realized exactly what she was looking at, she almost chocked on air. 

_"Holy quiznak!"_

\---

It was a risky move. 

Lance knew it, and it was more than a little unnerving as he stared at the rocks a few tail-lengths in front of him. The water crashed and sprayed against them, churning and roaring, telling him to stay away like he usually did. 

But the little green human from yesterday was up on the rocks. This was a chance he would probably never get again!

...Well, maybe that wasn't _entirely_ true. But Lance didn't want to wait around for the next time the green human came back to the beach. He liked this one, even if he couldn't say exactly why.

Maybe it was the funny circles on the human's face?

Either way, Lance was not going to let himself miss this opportunity. The human was _so close._ He just had to gather his nerves, face his fears, and... try not to die.

It took Lance's full concentration and then some to find the safest route through the mess or rocks and relentless water. Even after telling the currents to calm down, it almost had no effect on the ocean, and more than once he almost ended up smashed against the side of the rocks. In the end, he decided it was too dangerous; but instead of turning back, he managed to haul himself, tail and all, up on top of them instead. 

The new path took longer, because he could only get the the rocks closest to him, but he managed to make it work in the end. Lance just hoped that the green human would still be there when he finally made it to the pools. 

The Fates must have been on his side. When he finally got to his destination, the little human was still there, funny circles and all, leaning over the edge of the rock. Lance smiled proudly at his accomplishment as he pulled himself up and onto the large rock.

Apparently this wasn't something the human was expecting, because when he did so, Lance heard a piercing scream as the green creature stumbled backwards.

The human--female, most likely, although Lance couldn't be completely certain--sat on the rock, clutching something to her chest and breathing heavily in fright. Lance felt guilty. He never meant to startle her like that.

Dragging the rest of his tail up, he leaned forward to get a better look and make sure she hadn't been hurt. She was unscathed, thankfully, but now that Lance was so close he was able to see the strange circles over her eyes much more clearly. They were thin and held together by some type of thin, delicate metal. Lance plucked them carefully from her face to study them a little more.

This seemed to cause an immediate reaction from the human. She snapped something in her own language. The one Lance was desperately hoping she would teach him.

Lance, understandably, wasn't able to catch ansingle thing she said. But he heard the last word, and it didn't sound too difficult to pronounce. 

"...Ssseee."

There! He did it! Now Lance just had to learn what it meant. 

The female human said something again, and before Lance could try to repeat it, she reached out and grabbed the circles back from his grasp. She put them on her face again, and stopped squinting like she was doing before. Instead the green human stared at him, and then her eyes got wide as a blowfish and she gasped something. 

Lance decided it was time to introduce himself. Pointing a claw at his own chest, he said his name. Just like he had in the cave with... _him._ Lance didn't want to think about him right now, though. He wanted to learn the green human's name.

When all she did was stare at him, gaping like a whale shark, Lance repeated the motion. Twice.

Then she seemed to get it. She said something in the human language that he didn't comprehend, but he could have sworn his name was in there somewhere. And then she pointed at herself and said, "...Pidge...?" 

Why was she asking a question? Did she not know her own name? How sad.

The human repeated the action again, and this time when she said her name she sounded a little more certain. Lance smiled happily with his teeth. Now they were getting somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rover is a crab. Why? Well, why not?


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Allura and Coran!

Pidge had been acting funny for days now, and Keith knew she was hiding something. Not just from him, but Shiro and the others too; he had interrogated them not long after noticing in attempt to discover what it was.

Keith's results only gave him a dead end. He had to call it off after questioning Hunk. Even _he_ wouldn't tell Keith anything. Pidge may have been the worst at hiding the fact she had a secret (for example, Keith noticed almost right away) but no one could be as horrible at keeping them as Hunk. If his food-loving friend wouldn't say anything, then Keith knew he wasn't going to get anywhere with that approach.

It was going to drive him absolutely insane until he figured it out.

Sighing in annoyance, Keith shoved his apron into his backpack as he left through the employee entrance of the local grocery store in town. His shift ended--hours of opening cardboard cases of products in the stockroom and sneezing from the dust--and it was still early enough in the day before he should head home.

His stomach made its opinion clear enough. Keith hadn't eaten anything since the night before, because he was too busy wandering up and down the beach, trying to find the strange merman again.

Allura's place wasn't too far. And at the moment a milkshake sounded really, really, _really_ good. So that was where he went.

Altea was small enough to walk across in a little over an hour or two, depending on how often you stopped to shop. Because of this, most locals liked to get places by foot or bike. The fact that the tourists drove everywhere only reinforced the idea; streets were always packed, and parking spaces were limited. So Keith, like many others, preferred to walk. This meant his little pickup truck usually sat in the driveway unless he had to go out of town.

With his bag slung over one shoulder, Keith pushed open the door of the restaurant about twenty minutes after he had clocked out from work. It was a nice little place; one of those 50's-styled diners, with a jukebox no one actually used and lots of black and white pictures of old bands like The Beetles hanging on the walls. And it was surprisingly empty. Keith knew it wasn't because of the food. It was his favorite place in the entire town, and they had the best burgers. And milkshakes.

Which he still wanted.

Allura looked up as soon as the door opened, and Keith was greeted with a bright, happy smile when she stepped out from behind the counter.

"Keith!" she said. "Coran and I were wondering if we'd ever see you again."

"Yeah... Sorry about that. Just been a little busy lately." Keith ran a hand through his hair and tried his best to look as apologetic as he could. It was the truth; he never meant to avoid them. But what with Pidge's strange secrecy and the fruitless searches for Lance down at the beach, he kept running out of time to stop by, even if it was just to say hello.

But Allura only smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, we know you have your own life. I'm just glad to see you again, and I'm sure Coran will be, too."

Keith slid into a seat at one of the smaller tables by the wall as Allura pulled a little notepad out of the pocket of her apron, one hand poised over the paper and ready to write. "Is it safe to assume you're going to want the usual?"

"It is." He idly played with one of the pink packets of sugar at the center of the table. "And the bigger discount you give me, the more I'm just going to leave behind with the tip."

"You're going to tip much more than you should anyway, like you always do," Allura said almost scoldingly. "And besides, I give you and all your troublemaking companions the same discount. Who, might I mention, have been in much more often than you lately. They have lots to say. Mostly about you."

She took the sugar packet out of his hand so he could focus on what she was saying.

"That's funny. I could have told you the same thing about some of them." He tried to get the stupid sugar back, but Allura held it out of reach and Keith didn't feel like getting another from the table. Instead he slumped in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest; it was a bad habit, but not one he planned to change anytime soon.

Allura sighed and sat in the chair across from him. "They're worried about you, that's all I'm trying to say. Hunk told me you're down at the beach every day and--"

"Not every day. I have work."

But Allura acted like he hadn't said anything. "And I know what... with your parents--"

Keith interrupted her for a second time. "No," he said sternly. "It isn't because of that, and they're making way too much of a deal out of nothing. If you want gossip, I can tell you all about the weird stuff Pidge has been pulling. But whatever you're thinking, it isn't that."

Allura gave him a look. "We're all concerned. I just want you to know what you can tell us anything. You hide things too much. It isn't healthy."

"Neither are the milkshakes you have here, but I'm still probably going to finish two of them."

His friend smiled then, and that was how Keith knew he managed to avoid the subject for a little while longer. She reached across the table to place her hand on his arm before she stood up. "I'll bring two over soon. Just try to remember what I said, alright?"

"Yeah, I will. Promise," he replied, despite how it would be impossible to tell his friends about a local merman down at the beach without them thinking he was insane. That wasn't what Allura thought the problem was, of course, but it was the truth.

Keith unwrapped the plastic straw at the table and tied the paper wrapper into a knot. Honestly, if there was something concerning going on between all of them, it was whatever Pidge was hiding. Her secret was going to drive Keith absolutely insane until he figured it out.

But then Allura returned from the kitchen with two milkshakes as promised and also Coran, who was eager to hug him very tightly. Keith forgot about it for a little while.

\---

Lance was using the knife in the cave--that was one of the words he learned today from Pidge, along with _imbecile, baseball, programming,_ and _android._ The first two made enough sense, once Pidge explained them to him. The white sphere he saw them tossing around on the beach a while ago was a baseball. Humans used them to play games. An imbecile was a human who had an exceptional lack of intelligence. So far he liked that word the most.

The other two, _programming_ and _android_ made less sense, but he just nodded along anyway and acted like he understood. What he was able to grasp was that they involved human.. technology. Was that the word?

At the moment, the knife was being used to shred a leaf of seaweed into thin, delicate strips. He would roll them up rightly and then pop them into his mouth. It wasn't a very exciting meal, but he spent too much time with Pidge and was left without enough of it before the sky got dark to go actually looking for food. All of the crabs he saw were too small to be any good, anyway. 

Speaking of crabs, his new friend ended up looking red like one by the time she had to leave the beach. She said something about the sun and burning, but as far as Lance knew, humans only burned wood.

"Knife," Lance said to himself. He repeated the word a couple of times just because he liked the way it sounded.

Lessons with Pidge had turned out to be much more exciting than he thought they would be. Every once in a while she would bring human food with her if she planned to stay for a while. One time some of them were thin, flat circles called _cookies._ They were one of the best things Lance had ever eaten. He thought they were even better than the salmon he managed to catch once or twice when they tried to return from the ocean.

It also turned out that Pidge was a good human to go to for lessons. To be fair, she was only the second one he'd ever met, but she seemed to know a _lot._ Even though she was smart, she asked a lot of questions. Most of them were about the ocean.

Another thing he learned was the name of the small gray birds that landed on the beach sometimes. He was only really familiar with seabirds, because he lived in the ocean, but Pidge said they were called pigeons and that they lived mostly inland.

"Pidge. Pigeon," Lance replied then. "You... are a bird?"

After that she seemed annoyed and now he liked to call her Pidge-Pigeon sometimes, because her reaction reminded him of a blowfish (and Lance liked blowfish.) But not too often; he was afraid that one day she just wouldn't come back to teach him if he said if too much.

Kind of like Soreiee did for a while. After Lance cursed him out in his own language that day on the beach, he saw him all the time, wandering up and down the sand like he was looking for something.

Lance kept out of sight when that happened. But he still liked to watch, because he never could find what he was looking for and it was amusing.

Using the knife, Lance shredded another leaf of seaweed and chewed on it. Maybe Pidge would like some? But humans seemed weak; all of the food she brought to the beach smelled like it was put in a fire, or heated in one way or another. That didn't make sense to Lance. What was wrong with good, raw meat? Fresh meals were best that way.

(To be fair, Lance couldn't exactly make a fire under the ocean, so he wouldn't really know. But still.)

Maybe Lance could try this human "cooking" thing. Pidge said that was what they did with their food on land, and that another of her human friends was really good at it. But it didn't sound too difficult. He could leave some of the seaweed in the sun, maybe? Since humans were so obsessed with fires and things like that.

It sounded like a good idea. He would try it tomorrow, because at the moment he was too busy eating and then he wanted to play with the jingly metal things called _keys_ for a little while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've seen lots of fics with Keith being lactose intolerant and just kind of threw that idea out the window. Sorry, guys.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Pidge kept Rover. Of course she did.

Keith was staring at her. _Again._ It really was getting old.

Pidge looked up from the saltwater tank where she was feeding the fish to stare back. "What? Did your brain stop working?"

He seemed to realize he hadn't blinked in at least a minute and sat up a little straighter in his spot on the sofa. "N-no. Just... thinking."

Pidge rolled her eyes and used the magnetic eraser to clean off algae growing on the glass of the tank. "Whatever. I don't think you've ever had a single thought in your life. Not a sensible one, anyway."

On the other side of the sofa, Hunk laughed.

1 point for Pidge, Future Overlord of the Universe. 0 for Keith, Emo Broody Boy.

Looking for some way to intervene before there was (another) argument between them, Shiro decided to speak up. He was standing next to her, for once a little shorter because she was on a step-stool to get into the tank. Shiro tapped lightly on the glass with his prosthetic hand.

"The crab is new." He sounded like he was trying too hard to change the subject without it being noticeable. It was.

Pidge fell for it anyway, because if there was something she could be as proud of as she was when it came to her computer programming, it was the tank.

"He is," she said as she got off the stool and back on the ground. "I named him Rover."

"Nerd." That was Keith; not Shiro. But Pidge decided to be the bigger person and ignored his comment. Keith was just sour because Pidge had a secret, and he couldn't figure out what it was.

To be honest, _none_ of them knew about Lance though, so Keith wasn't even out of the loop. And while the others were probably just as curious as Keith was, they didn't spend all their time staring at her or sulking about it. At least, not when she could see. Keith just didn't care and did those things openly.

(That was partially why she hadn't told anyone about the merman or his English lessons. Which were going absolutely swimmingly, if that was an appropriate term to use. Even though Pidge wanted to tell them. She really, really, really wanted to tell them. It was only because Lance begged her to keep it quiet that she did. And Pidge listened, of course. Because if she did something to scare him off or make him upset Lance could always swim away, and then she would never be able to learn more about him.)

"...idge? Hey, buddy, you still there? Pigeon?"

The shorter of the four in green snapped out of her thoughts and glared at Hunk. "I'm not a _bird._ Why do you all keep doing that?"

Hunk put his hands up in defense as Shiro spoke a second time. "...We haven't? No one's used that in weeks."

Oh. Right. It was Lance.

There she was, letting it slip again. Pidge seemed to be doing it a lot lately; probably because she was tired. When Pidge wasn't working on fixing a broken computer for money, she was trying to come up with lessons for Lance, and when she wasn't doing either of those things she was down at the beach putting those lessons to good use. To put it simply, Pidge was busy. And being busy meant she didn't have much time left over in the day after all of that for sleeping. Not sleeping meant more mistakes.

In the past few days, there were a couple of moments where she almost accidentally let the ball drop. But she hadn't actually, at least not yet. If things continued the way they were though, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

"...Sorry," Pidge managed, trying to put letters together in her mind to form words. Speaking of words, she still had to come up with some sort of plan for Lance's lesson tomorrow morning.

Shiro seemed to notice something was off, and he ruffled her hair despite her delayed protests. "You seem tired. I bet you haven't had a full night's rest in days. You should go do that now. We'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

"I bet _you_ haven't, either," Pidge replied, scowling. "And besides, the sun hasn't even gone down yet."

"No, I think Shiro's right about this one." Hunk stood up and stretched. "I should probably head out anyway. Oh! The cookies I made are still on the counter. Just wait for them to cool this time, or you'll burn your mouth again."

Pidge wanted to be irritated, but she couldn't when peanut butter cookies were involved. Instead she fought back a yawn and mumbled "Thank you," and Keith patted her head quickly like she was a child before following the others two out the door. Pidge rolled her eyes and tried to fix it, and then it was just her and the saltwater tank left.

When she was sure there would be no one barging in because they forgot something, Pidge sighed and pressed her forehead against the glass of the tank. The light switched automatically to the blacklight, and Rover glowed a dark blue as he wandered aimlessly looking for food.

"That was a close one," she said aloud, watching her little friend. "They're going to find out sooner or later, and then it won't be just me who knows. I mean, us. You were there, too."

Rover blinked one funny little crab eye at her and used a claw to shove something in his mouth that he decided to eat. Pidge took that was some sort of confirmation, though for what she didn't know, and went to her room to put together Lance's English lesson.

\---

Lance was learning that sentences weren't quite as easy as words.

For example, how could there be so many different meanings for the same word? Or spellings? This human language was much more complex than it had to be. Lance's was much easier.

"No," Pidge was saying. "That's not how it's pronounced."

She used a finger to draw lines in the sand again. Though Pidge said it wasn't drawing; it was really "writing," and those funny shapes were supposed to be words. To Lance they just looked like really bad drawings.

"Yes it is," Lance protested, and he tried to say it again.

 _"Bouquet,"_ Pidge corrected. "The sentence says, 'I gave him a bouquet.' The word is French."

"I thought you were teaching me Human!"

The girl sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. It made her glasses tilt sideways (he learned what "glasses" meant last week.) it also made the odd dark shadows under her eyes stand out, and they made Lance a little nervous. He hoped it wasn't a symptom of a deadly human disease.

"I'm teaching you English. It's a type of human language, we've gone over this."

"You do not all speak the same language?? How do you get anything done?"

Pidge give him a look. "What, and all of your kind does?" There was a shine in her eyes, and Lance understood what it meant by now. It meant that there was something she desperately wanted to know.

"Maybe," Lance said, and he coiled his tail playfully around himself in the sand. "But I won't tell you until you promise to teach me every human language in the entire world."

His teacher made a sputtering sound, like when humans inhale water instead of air and can't breathe. "Lance! What the quiznak! I-I can't... I don't know every language! There's hundreds! Thousands! I couldn't--"

Lance laughed then, and he rolled over in the sand to enjoy the warmth of the sun. "I am just... joking? Is that the word?"

There was a sigh of relief, and it wasn't from Lance. "Good. I almost had a heart attack."

"But do you really all speak different tongues? Why?"

Pidge seemed to decide that lessons were done for the day. She stretched out next to him, her arms crossed under her head. "The ocean separates lots of humans. For a long time that made it hard for us to learn about each other and communicate, so we all ended up developing our own languages."

With one tanned arm, Lance played idly with a piece of glass that the water had smoothed down. It shone a pale blue like the scales on his elbow. "Maybe... that is why. The ocean keeps my kind together."

For a time Pidge didn't say anything. She seemed unsure, as if there were words she wanted to say, but she didn't know how. Pidge did eventually though. "You... You know, you would probably understand more if I let my friends meet you."

"No." Lance stood firm. He couldn't meet them. Or, meet all of them but one, because he knew that human already. Lance wasn't ready yet to throughly chew him out as much as he wanted to. "Not the red one."

"Not the...? Okay, fine. You got a grudge against him or what?"

 _"Not the red one,"_ Lance insisted. It was going to be his way, or no way at all.

"I said fine! I get it. Keep your problems to yourself, I guess. I won't bring him. Is... tomorrow okay?"

Lance buried the glass in the sand absent-minedly. "...Yes. Tomorrow is... fine." For some reason the statement made his stomach twist uncomfortably. But he was a merman of his words, and he couldn't go back on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this yesterday! But I ended up taking an unexpected trip to Portland and got stranded with a guy who I became friends with.


	11. Chapter 11 (and a thousand apologies)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (One of) the meetings you've been waiting for.

Pidge wasn’t telling them anything. Hunk tried to get her to open up, but only for a little while. To Shiro, it seemed like there was too much stubbornness in her for someone so small. Where did it all fit? 

“If you’re going to be all mysterious and weird,” Hunk was saying as they made their way through the neighborhood, “why didn’t you make Keith come with us, too? He’s _way_ better at being creepy than you are.”

Instead of saying anything, Pidge glanced over her shoulder to shoot him a dangerous look. 

“N-not that you can’t be creepy too,” Hunk amended. “But you are Keith are, like, best buddies. Y’know.”

Pidge adjusted the straps of the backpack slung over her shoulder. “Keith had to work tonight. Got called in I guess,” she spoke at last. 

For some reason, the sound of her voice was oddly reassuring. But maybe it was because Shiro was so used to hearing it; she bickered with the other two constantly, and the three of them acted like the siblings Shiro never really had. Hearing no one but Hunk rambling nervously to himself was unusual, and he was glad to hear her speak. Especially considering how strange she had been acting lately... Even if he could that the words she just spoke were a lie. 

“Where are we going, again?” Shiro asked at last. He never really prided himself on being a Broadway-grade actor, but he thought he did a decent enough job at keeping his tone light and mildly curious. Of course, Shiro was also sure Pidge could see through it in a heartbeat if she was paying close attention. From where he was behind the other two, he couldn’t tell, but he could have sworn she kept reaching up to adjust her classes. 

Pidge was nervous. 

But about what?

“I told you already,” she responded. “We’re going to the beach.”

“The beach is great. Except it’s almost six o’clock and the tide’s gonna start coming up soon. And it’ll be dark. Also I was in the middle of fixing up my truck before you called, and I was gonna spend a couple hours on that, so--” 

Shiro put a hand on Hunk’s shoulder, and he jumped a little at the unexpected contact. But the message was clear enough, and his rambling died down. There was quiet again. 

They had been walking for at least ten minutes now; the neighborhood wasn’t very big, and Shiro suspected they would be coming to the edge of it soon. Sure enough, up ahead in the orange glow of the sunset was the parking lot tourists used during the day to get down to the beach. It was empty now; everyone had either gone home, or out to eat at one of the many restaurants that were around. He had a feeling Pidge chose to come down to the beach this late on purpose.

He followed behind them like before, the trio walking single-file as they crossed the lot and down the trail that lead to the sand. Shiro could feel his jaw clenching and he had to tell himself to stop it. The same nervousness was getting to him now too, but he didn’t want to show it. 

Just like up at the parking lot, the beach was entirely empty of people, save for the three of them. There weren’t even people setting up for a bonfire. Maybe it was because of the wind; it ruffled Shiro’s tuft of white hair and he shivered a little. So maybe the black tank wasn’t a good idea. 

Thankfully, the cold was quickly forgotten when his attention returned to the two younger ones ahead of him. Pidge wandered a little further down to the slowly rising tide, and she rummaged through her bag. 

“Pidge,” Shiro called out, “What--”

“Quiet,” she snapped. “I mean--please. Just… wait a sec.” 

Hunk said something then, low and under his breath, but Shiro didn’t catch it. He was too busy watching as Pidge waded into the water, the bag left behind in the sand, with something clenched in her fist. 

Whatever Hunk was saying died in his throat. Shiro glanced down at him curiously, but before he could ask anything, he saw a flash of color in the corner of his eye. Instead of speaking, he followed Hunk’s gave up to the ocean, where the flash had come from. Was it a boat? Or…

...Something swimming, gliding easily through the water with a long, glowing blue tail that reminded him of bioluminescent dinoflagellates; something he had only seen in videos, and never lucky enough to actually witness in person. Shiro couldn’t really see anything except the tail, and other patches of glowing scales because of the growing dark. The odd, almost fantastical creature cut through to waves and made its way to the shore, and seemed to be headed, to Shiro’s horror, right towards Pidge, still wading in the water. 

Shiro couldn’t recall a time he had ever moved so fast. One second he was standing beside Hunk, and the next he was running through the sand, kicking up clouds of the stuff as he dashed down to the water, ignoring the way the freezing ocean soaked through his shoes and pulled Pidge out of the way.

“I--hey!” Pidge loudly voiced her displeasure as Shiro tugged her back to the beach, out of the water and away from the glowing creature that paused and seemed to be watching them closely. 

“Keep away from it, Pidge, we don’t know what it is, and--”

“It’s _glowing!_ Is it going to kill us?” Hunk panicked. “It’s glowing and we don’t know what it is, but it’s probably going to eat us! Why’d you have to bring us down here, Pidge?” 

Now wet and irritated, Pidge worked on wiggling her way out of Shiro’s grasp. “Let go of me! He’s not going to eat you! Will you _please_ just calm down!”

Still watching from the water, the thing--the creature Pidge had addressed as male--slithered up to the sand in a way that was not unlike a snake. Shiro watched in shock as he recognized the torso of a human, long fingers, and a mop of brown hair now that it was much closer. 

It was a person. But… not a person.

“Holy quiznak. Is that a _mermaid_?” Hunk echoed Shiro’s own thoughts. 

The creature at Shiro and Pidge’s feet--mermaid, or merman?--looked up and focused a pair of shining blue eyes at the girl. 

“...Your pod is...loud,” it said, slowly, as if each word was chosen with great care. 

“ _My pod_ is frightened because you didn’t wait for the signal,” Pidge retorted, and in the moment of confusion she was able to tear away from Shiro’s grasp. “I didn’t even get the chance to explain anything to them!”

All of this was… just too much. None of it was making any sense, and Shiro was almost convinced he had hit his head somehow and was hallucinating everything. 

“You… you know… this thing?” 

Pidge turned around to look at her two friends. “This… is why I brought you down here. I didn’t want to say anything, because I knew you both would panic. Or you wouldn't believe me,” she said, as though that were even worse. 

“Are you trying to tell us that mer...people exist?” Hunk was fiddling with one end of his orange headband, wrapping the fabric around one hand anxiously. “I think I’m going insane. Or like I’m going to throw up. There’s no way! This is crazy. I… it… he talks. Like, he knows English. How does he know English?”

Shiro never took his eyes off the creature in front of him. It--no, he--had himself propped up with his arm, his tail trailing into the water. Shiro could see that his fingers were long because the sharpened into claws, which were dug into the sand. A very human face looked back at him with a gaze that told Shiro he was doing the same thing--examining him.

“Your hand,” the merman said at last. “It is… odd.” 

“Lance,” Pidge said scoldingly, “that’s rude. And yes, he knows English. I… kinda taught him. I mean, I’m teaching him. He learns fast.”

“You’re teaching a merman English,” Shiro deadpanned. 

“That was what I just said, wasn’t it? Listen, I was down at the beach and he just… came up to me. It took me a little while to figure it out, but… he wasn’t going to hurt me. He just wanted me to teach him. So I did--I mean, isn’t it amazing? They’ve existed all this time, and we never even knew! This wasn’t an opportunity I could just pass up.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you guys. Seriously, I am. But I knew you’d all act… well, like this if I told you. And I was afraid of doing anything that would scare him off. But I’ve wanted to tell you for ages now. I really did. The other night, he said he wanted to meet you guys. So… we threw a plan together real quick.”

Pidge fell into silence after that. She kept her eyes on the ground, and dug the toe of her soaked shoe into the sand, like a child waiting to be reprimanded. 

Shiro looked at her for a moment. And then he ran a hand through the little bit of white in his hair. And then he sighed. 

“...It sounds like we have a lot to go over. Lance, was it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry. 
> 
> I never meant to take this long to update; I took the first version of this chapter down to work on it. I knew it wasn't every good when I posted it, but work had been crazy and I was tired. Then when I went back to re-write the chapter, lots of stuff happened at work again. 
> 
> A lot of people are quitting right now. My work schedule for this week was changed _three freaking times._ We're going through a remodel, and until it's done, a few times a week I've been an "ambassador." Basically, I guide people to the things they're looking for because it's all turned around. On normal days, I still do closing shifts in apparel, but that isn't very often. They also made me shoe backup, so I work day shifts in the shoe department when our lead for that section needs help or has the day off. And now they want to train be to be PIC (Person in Charge) in apparel during closing. PIC is basically a stand-in for the management when they've gone home for the evening. 
> 
> When I haven't been working, I've just been tired. They like to have me close one night and come back in the morning, which sucks because I don't get home until midnight when I close. But it also means more hours, so I guess there's not a whole lot I can complain about. 
> 
> But I'm very sorry. All of this just started happening and I never was really able to find the time to write, and I'm going to try to make sure it doesn't happen again. Thank you for being so patient, and for not giving up on me; I hope I haven't let you down.
> 
> Also! If you're interested, you can find me on Tumblr here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aeruh  
> I'm on there a lot more. Same URL. Because I'm not very creative when it comes to those.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith isn't very happy. But that probably isn't too much of a surprise.

Lance was absolutely thrilled. 

Two new humans! Well, relatively new. Lance had seen them before, of course, up on the beach that one time. It seemed so long ago. This was the first time he was able to speak to them, though, so as far as Lance was concerned they were as new as morning fog over the ocean. 

Things didn’t go quite as well as Pidge-Pidgeon was hoping for, and Lance wasn’t going to deny that he was probably at fault. But she was taking ages to get there, and Lance was never really known for patience. When the human girl finally waded into the water with something in her hand (Lance didn’t know what it was, but he was hoping it was a peanut butter cookie) he decided to get an early start and threw the idea of waiting to the waves. 

When he finally made it up to the sand, the two others reacted by shouting (mostly the one with the strange, yellow, human coverings) and saying very stern words (from the one in black.) It was more than clear that they weren’t very pleased. Lance could smell the fear on them from a mile away. Pidge, obviously, still hadn’t told them a thing. It took _ages_ for them to get down to the water; why did she choose to wait so long? All of this could have been avoided if she did. Well, a little of it at least. This specific part. But still. 

Then there were some more words between the three humans, and while Pidge (finally) got around to an explanation, Lance took the time to look them over. 

It was the human in black that caught his attention first. He had a funny puff of white hair that got in his eyes a lot. It reminded Lance of a cloud. But that wasn’t what really intrigued the merman; his eyes kept going to the new human’s right arm. Only it wasn’t one. At least, not like any Lance had ever seen. 

Eventually Lance realized the funny human was staring right back at him, and when they made eye contact he said, “Your hand. It is… odd.” 

Why was it like that? 

Pidge scolded him after that; it wasn’t Lance’s fault though. How was he supposed to know that was impolite? And then the humans talked again, leaving Lance feeling left out because they were talking about him, after all. Shouldn't he be in the conversation too? But he didn’t want Pidge to yell at him again, because she was a little unnerving when she was irritated. So he kept quiet. 

“...It sounds like we have a lot to go over,” the human in black stated finally, and then he looked down--at last--to make eye contact with him again. “Lance, was it?”

Lance smiled with all of his teeth and propped himself up a little higher. “Yes. It is nice to meet you.” He even held out his hand to “shake” like Pidge said humans did when they were introduced to others of their kind for the first time.

The human smiled just a little, and then he leaned down a little and wrapped his hand around Lance’s. “My name is Shiro.”

“...I’m Hunk,” the one in yellow spoke up. “I-I mean, if we’re going to be doing introductions and all that. Hi. I still can’t believe we’re talking to a... _merman._ ”

“You’ll get used to it,” Pidge said simply before turning to Lance. “I’m still mad at you, by the way, for not waiting like I said.” 

Despite the harsh words, she still held out her hand to reveal two (two!!) of the peanut butter cookies Lance had been hoping for earlier. He took them from her with a very hurried “Thank you” before shoving them into his mouth as if they were going to grow fins and swim away. 

“Is _that_ why you keep asking me to bake for you?” Hunk asked. “You’ve been feeding them to a fish person.” 

“‘Fish person’ is rude,” Lance said around a mouthful of cookie. It reminded him of Pidge's scolding from earlier.

“Sorry. Mer...person. Merman. Still feels weird to say it. You’ve been feeding the cookies I made you to a merman!” 

Pidge rolled her eyes. “I still ate about half of them. Don’t get your headband in a twist.” 

The conversation went on like that; bantering between Pidge and the one called Hunk. Shiro watched them, breaking it up when it got too heated, or laughing when something struck him as funny. Lance didn’t really understand when that happened, but what humans thought of as humor might have been a little different than what his own kind did. It was, surprisingly, a rather normal conversation. Lance was amazed at how easily they seemed to be comfortable with him. 

It was a nice feeling; the bantering, the conversation. It reminded Lance of his own family, and that was something he sorely missed. 

If they were this unbothered by him being with them, then that meant they would probably come back, right? Lance hoped so. Pidge was good company, but having others was exciting. They could probably teach him human things too. 

Like curse words. Lance still needed to expand his vocabulary in that area. For Soriee, of course. He did still have a job to do.

\----

Keith couldn’t recall a time he had ever been so furious. Which was kind of saying something, because he was fully aware of how short his temper could be. Shiro was also good at reminding him, too. 

Speaking of Shiro, that traitor was down there with the others. 

Keith had never felt so betrayed as he did in that moment, crouching in the tall grass up along the beach houses nestled along the beach. It was making his nose itch, but he tried to ignore it and used a pair of cheap binoculars that were way too small. (His father got them for him when he was a kid and they used to go on boating trips, back before--but no. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about _that._ )

To be honest, Keith was a bit let down. Lance was glowing blue, and it was only more obvious now; they had been talking for so long that the sun was gone, and the merman down on the sand was easy to see. Couldn’t Pidge have tried at least a little harder? They were literally right there in the open. If his friends had to go behind his back like this, they should have made it worth his while. 

Watching them down by the water, talking like everything was normal… it hurt a bit. Even though there was a rational part of Keith’s brain that was telling him they probably didn’t mean to do it. 

_Yeah,_ Keith responded to it, _because you aren’t even supposed to know that they’re down there, talking to the weird blue merman that_ you _found first. And also have been looking for forever. Of course he would show up now._

If Keith squinted enough, the binoculars were just barely clear enough to show a tiny glowing spot of green around Lance’s neck. That jerk was wearing the necklace he gave him. 

(There was a small bit of satisfaction at the knowledge that Lance liked it, though, because he was particularly proud of finding that one. Even though he was _clearly_ avoiding him now and seemed to favor Pidge more.) 

But the longer Keith watched them, the less any of this was making sense. How did Pidge even find him in the first place? And why would they purposely keep Keith out of this? He was as much a part of that group as anyone… right? Besides, Pidge wasn’t the kind of person to do that out of malice. She had to have a reason for it. 

_Idiot,_ Keith’s brain said. _You just said that Lance was avoiding you on purpose. If he somehow knew you all were friends, of course he’d want to keep you out of it._

He told it to shut up again, because he knew this already, of course. That didn’t mean he had to like it though.

Well, whatever. 

Keith had been let down before by lots of people. It wasn’t a new feeling. Cursing and not caring who heard, if there even was anyone around, he hauled himself to his feet and brushed away the powdery sand clinging to his black jeans. Then he shoved the binoculars back into the jacket of his pocket and started retrace his steps. 

Allura was always good at keeping the cafe open pretty late. At least, compared to most places here. Milkshakes always made things better. 

That thought helped, but only a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much! All of you were so kind in last chapter's comments and it means a lot to me. 
> 
> I've had these last two days off, so I decided to do some writing. That's why you get another chapter so soon :) 
> 
> (Also, I know I've had lots of Shiro in these last two parts. He's kinda my favorite. Can you tell?)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith isn't very good at thinking things through sometimes.

A new routine fell into place not long after Lance met the other humans.

Pidge still visited just as often as ever, although more often than not Hunk or Shiro (or sometimes both, but that was rare) tagged along with her. When it was all three of them, they met at the tidepools and Pidge gave more lessons in Human--er, _English,_ and sometimes there were cookies. Hunk talked about machines; giant, loud metal things that humans used for everything. As far as Lance could understand, he liked to fix them up, or take them apart to make new ones. 

Shiro apparently didn’t work on these “machines” with Hunk, because he never talked about them. He liked to watch the Pidge’s lessons instead, offering bits of advice when he thought it would be helpful (and it always was.) 

It didn’t take very long for Lance to decide that he liked his tiny human group very much. A lot more than Soreiee, that was for sure, because they always came back. 

At the moment they were on the beach again, like always. This time they were on the other side of the pools, near Lance’s cave, because the weather was nice and nice weather always meant a lot of humans at the ocean. They were safe on the other side, though, and Lance could sunbathe in the sand without fear of being seen. 

Pidge flipped through a book (different than the ones she had before, with lots of stories that Pidge called “Fairy Tails.” Only the fairies didn’t really have tails, and there were more humans than fairies.) While he waited for her to find the right one she wanted to read with him today, he played with a clam shell, pressing it into the sand. 

“Here,” Pidge said suddenly, and then she was shoving the book under his nose. “We’re going to read this one today.” 

“I do not want to read about fairies’ tails anymore,” Lance complained. “There are no fairies in them.”

“Fairy _tales,_ not _tails._ They’re two different words. Different meanings. Besides, I think you’ll like this one.”

They still sounded the same anyway, no matter what Pidge insisted, but the sun was making Lance drowsy and he didn’t feel like arguing. Instead he flicked his own tail in the water absently as it rose and fell, taking care not to send water up and get it on Pidge’s book. She would strangle him if he did. Or at least try to. 

Shiro, who was sitting next to Pidge, looked over her shoulder. 

_“‘The Little Mermaid,’”_ he read aloud, and then he gave her a look. “Are you sure about this one? Isn’t it--”

“It’s more… child-friendly than the original, I swear.” Pidge assured him. “I wouldn’t have chosen this if it wasn’t.”

Lance sat up quickly, interested, and he tried to get his eyes to focus on the paper in front of them. He had only caught one word of their conversation, but it was the only word that really mattered. 

“Mermaid? There’s a mermaid?” 

\----

“Stupid mermaid fairy tail,” Lance was saying later (more like blubbering, really, worse than a fish, but Lance would never agree to that.) 

Hunk awkwardly patted his back over the patch of blue scales. “It’s just a story,” he tried to say in consolation. 

“A _sad_ story,” Lance emphasized. “No more lessons today.” 

“Lance is right,” Shiro agreed as he reached into a bag, digging around for a bit. “It’s good to take a break.” 

"Sorry," Pidge muttered. "Guess I didn't go through this story before as much as I should have." 

Lance made a sound that wasn't one of disagreement. 

There were bottles of water in the bag--four of them, Lance counted, as Shiro put them on the small blanket spread out on the sand, one at a time. The humans were eager to open them, sweating from the sun overhead (especially Pidge, who was beginning to look a little bit pink, like a sea shell.) 

“We have the ocean,” Lance said suddenly, unable to hide his curiosity as he rolled the last bottle over in his hands. “Why do you need this kind?” 

“Well, someone’s obviously feeling better,” Hunk muttered to himself. He was using a little of the water to dampen the orange cloth before tying it back around his head. “You get over things easily, don’t you?” 

The funny white thing called a “cap” that was on the bottle looked inviting. Lance gave it an experimental gnaw before deciding he probably shouldn’t do it again. 

“No. I do not. But the 'fairy tail' story was not real. Sad stories that are real are different.” 

Hunk gave him a look like he was going to say something, but Pidge cut him off. “The water in the ocean is saltwater,” she said. “Humans can’t drink it. It’ll dehydrate us and make us sick. We can only drink freshwater.”

Fresh? 

“The water in the bottles is not fresh,” Lance protested. He bit a hole through his own and let the water run past his lips before making a face and spitting it out into the sand. “It is old.” 

Pidge said something then, quietly and to herself, and Lance assumed it was probably best he didn’t really catch it. Hunk only shook his head when Lance tried the bottle again, made a sound of disgust, and shoved it into Shiro’s hand.

“You didn’t have to bite through it,” Hunk said then, eying the hole at the bottom of the bottle. “You could have just taken off the cap.”

Lance knew this, but he decided to act like he hadn’t heard and decided to settle for pushing the dry, powdery sand up into tiny hills instead. Little mountains. Shiro told him once what they looked like, taller and bigger than anything else on land. Lance’s tiny model paled in comparison. 

Out of his peripheral, Lance could have sworn he saw something among the rocks--a flash that was bright and red. But when he turned his head to get a clearer look, there was nothing. 

_That was strange,_ Lance mused to himself. 

\----

That was close. 

Keith stayed where he was, crouched uncomfortably behind one of the larger rocks. Everything smelled salty like brine, and the palm of his hand had been cut open a little by an unsuspecting barnacle in his attempt to hide himself. It was shallow, thankfully, and hardly bleeding, but that didn’t make it sting any less. Granted, he had forgotten his favorite gloves (which probably would have been enough to keep his hand from getting cut) but it was too late for that now. 

His fingers curled into a fist, and he wondered if it had been worth calling in sick just so he could snoop around like some nosy kid. 

After staying hidden for a few minutes when Keith guessed he was probably in the clear again, he slowly, cautiously, peeked around the rock to watch the group on the beach. Sure enough, Lance either hadn’t seen him after all, or decided it wasn’t worth pursuing, because he lay stretched out on the sand with the others.

The sight made him frown. It had been _weeks_ since he first discovered he had been betrayed, but he still wasn’t any less bitter about it.

Making sure he was out of sight again, Keith shrugged off his jacket. It was stupid of him to bring it anyway. The heat of the sun overhead made him feel like he was being cooked in it, and the color probably wasn’t the best thing to wear to go unnoticed. He tied it around his waist like he used to when he was younger and kept going. 

Other than Lance, the only other person Keith was concerned about spotting him was Shiro. But the oldest of them had his back to Keith, and now Lance was busy with burying his hands in the dry sand. He said something then, and Hunk answered him, but no one else even bothered to look Keith’s way. 

Good. 

After a little bit of careful, slow climbing, Keith’s feet touched the sand, and he was over the hardest part of his mission.

(Okay, so when it was put like that, it sounded a little childish. But it was still a mission nonetheless, and Keith always liked to call things what they were. It also made it seem more serious than “just a little bit of snooping behind his friends’ backs.” Which was also what this was.) 

With the rocks behind him, all Keith had to do now was find some place to stay where he couldn’t be seen. It was a beach after all, and considering that his friends were the only ones there, it wouldn’t be very difficult at all for them to notice him after a while. At least if he remained in plain sight, that is. 

But luck was on his side. This part of the coast was not well-known for its geology, and huge rocks were practically everywhere. The enormous ones as tall as buildings were definitely out of the question as they were further out into the water. But the other smaller ones that were a little bit closer were okay, even if it meant he would have to get his black jeans wet. 

The nearest one thankfully wasn’t too far, so he didn’t have to worry a lot about being noticed. That was where he headed next, darting as quickly as he could into the ocean. At least the water was still shallow, even if it began to seep through his shoes. 

Once Keith was behind the safety of the rock he was free to watch the others as long as he wanted. It was still early in the day, which meant it would be hours before the tide started to rise again and he would have to worry about making it back to the other side. 

So Keith settled in to wait.

The breeze was on his side today, too, it would seem. It was blowing upwind, which meant that every once in awhile he was able to catch snippets of their conversation. Not much, but still better than nothing. It sounded like Pidge was reading aloud from a book and Lance was complaining about it. (In English, Keith noted. He figured out they had been teaching Lance English during their visits to the beach.) 

Time passed slowly after that. On occasion he would pull out his phone (kept safe in a plastic ziplock bag this time, so that no matter what happened hopefully it wouldn’t end up ruined by saltwater like his previous one.) At first ten minutes went by, and then thirty, and then a full hour. Nothing much had changed, except for the fact that Lance was beginning to get restless and was slapping the fin of his tail on the sand. 

That was bad. If the merman decided to go back to the water, Keith would be spotted almost instantly. And he really didn’t want that to happen. He would have to head back earlier than he wanted. 

Just as Keith was beginning to weigh his options--trying to estimate how quickly he could get back unnoticed and how fast Lance could return to the water--the ocean decided to make the choice for him, and it wasn’t one that Keith agreed with. 

Sneaker waves were terrible, and called _sneaker_ waves for a reason. It was almost impossible to tell when one was going to happen, and most people never even bothered to think about them when they went to the beach.

Keith, apparently, was one of those people. 

In retrospect, he probably should have noticed something strange. The water pulled back suddenly, receding further than he had seen in a very, very long time. Keith barely had enough time to realize something odd was happening before there was a sudden roar, and a furious, unstoppable rush of water that surged back upwards onto the beach. 

He didn’t have any time to prepare himself. 

The water worked like a magnet, pulling things with it, and Keith--the idiot that he was, not even trying to cling to the rock he was hiding behind--was one of them. He at least had time to shove his protected phone back into his pocket before the water caught around his jeans, held him in its grip, and began to recede again. His hand scrabbled frantically to try and get a grip on the rock, on anything, but it was too late. 

When you live as close to the water as Keith did, it was easy to forget how dangerous the ocean could be. Humans were meant to live on land, not in the water. Everything found in the endless, cold water was not there to help keep a person alive. At least, not without great effort. And Keith somehow one of the idiots who let himself forget it. 

When the waves pulled him out to the ocean, he screamed and tried to fight it. But it dragged him out anyway, into the deeper, rough water, and it poured into his mouth and left him sputtering and feeling like he couldn’t breathe. It brought back horrible memories, things he would much rather leave alone, and in that moment Keith was absolutely terrified because _he was drowning._

The water came up again before he could catch his breath, coming up over his nose and the only thing Keith understood was fear and the horrible realization that he was going to die, because there was no possibility it was going to end in any other way.

Keith tried to find the surface, but he didn’t know which direction it was in. His chest was hurting and his lungs burned, and instincts were fighting him, telling him to open his mouth and to breathe in despite the fact that there was nothing but water around him. 

There was a sudden flash of color. It was a striking, almost glowing blue, strange and out of place in the midst of all the chaos. Keith barely had any room left in the midst of his panic to recognize it, or the familiar shine of fish-like scales and tan human skin. 

Something wrapped around his chest then, strong and firm. Keith tried to fight it off, but nothing was working, and it was dragging him down, until--

Until his head broke the surface and Keith realized he was being dragged up to the air, not the bottom of the sea, and his lungs worked as hard as they could to fill with air again like they were supposed to. 

There was a voice in his ear that was speaking to him. It took a moment for Keith to first recognize that there even was a voice and then another to comprehend the words. 

“Soreiee,” it was saying in a familiar tone, “you are in more trouble than a bleeding fish in a frenzy of sharks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter done! I close today at work and decided to post this. I started it on Sunday before I headed out to a concert in Portland. (It was great and I loved every second of it.) 
> 
> Hopefully you enjoy it. I had a busy weekend doing fun stuff this time, so I tried to find time to get this part done.
> 
> Also! I made a tumblr post yesterday too with photos of the actual beach the setting is based off of. You can find the link to it in the first chapter's notes.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot twist: Keith's name is actually Keith. Wow.

Lance thought Soreiee was dying. 

He had to have been, screaming like that. The sound was so loud he thought it would make his ears bleed; it was worse than anything he had ever heard. 

Naturally, it startled the other humans (who had already lept up to avoid the sudden rush of water from the wave) but Lance ignored them in favor of dragging himself back into the ocean. And then there he was, floundering worse than a guppy that didn’t know how to keep itself upright. Soreiee was still screaming, too. 

Honestly, though. It was his fault. That’s what happens when you did things you weren’t supposed to.

But nevertheless, Soreiee was still drowning, or at least about to. Lance had to do something about it. Besides, what use would his English lessons be if he couldn’t use them?

So Lance swam over quick as he could (which was very quick, considering he was able to calm the waters somewhat) and wrapped both arms around the human’s upper body, right around his chest. Black hair was stuck to his cheek and he was completely drenched, his lungs heaving to fill with air after being submerged. 

“Soreiee,” Lance said, very slowly and as seriously as he could, “you are in more trouble than a bleeding fish in a frenzy of sharks.”

And to that, the only thing the human was able to reply with was, “Wh… what the fuck?”

Lance wondered what a “fuck” was, but he figured he would just ask Pidge after he dragged Soreiee back to the beach. 

\----

As it turned out, Lance never got his chance to ask. This was mostly because his human friends were busy with being very, very panicked. 

As soon as Soreiee was back on the sand and not completely underwater, Shiro was taking him out of Lance’s arms and patting him on his shoulders, his back, making sure he was awake and asking if he could hear him.

Soreiee tried to brush him off and tell him to go away, but it didn’t work very well because he was hardly able to get two words out before he coughed up _way_ too much water for any human to hold in their stomach. 

Hunk rubbed his back, saying things that were meant to be comforting, and Pidge was there with two fingers pressed against Soreiee’s wrist. She looked very focused, as if she were trying to measure something.

“I’m fine,” Soreiee finally said, and he batted the others away once he was done coughing up water. Lance realized he missed the sound of the human’s voice. 

“No, you’re not. You almost drowned--” That was Shiro, but Soreiee cut him off before he could finish his sentence. 

“But I _didn’t,_ so it’s fine.” 

“You’re lucky Lance was there, Keith. Or else…” Hunk paused, and he glanced back and forth between Lance and Soreiee. “Oh yeah. You two don’t know each other yet, do you? You weren’t here when...” 

Lance opened his mouth to say something and to ask what a “Keith” (and a “fuck” while he was at it) was, but then Soriee started to talk over him. He seemed to have a bad habit of cutting people off, and Lance was starting to think that he didn’t like it very much. 

“I know who he is. Just because you three decided to go sneaking around behind my back doesn’t mean I don’t know. We’ve known each other since _before_ whenever Pidge brought you down here to see him.” Soreiee’s voice was sharp, or at least as sharp as it could have been after swallowing too much of the ocean. His voice cracked halfway through his words, but it was still impossible for Lance to miss the sound of hurt and anger in them. 

Pidge moved her hand away from Soreiee’s wrist and adjusted her glasses instead, sounding sheepish. “You… you knew?”

“Of course I knew. I’m not an idiot. I followed you guys that night. And you know, it _really sucks_ when you find out your friends are going behind your back for _weeks_ to go play with a goddamn _fish.”_

Lance slapped his tail against the wet sand in defense. “I am not a fish,” he retorted, scowling and finally getting his chance to speak. “Maybe I should have just let the ocean swallow you up like a whale. You ignore me first--I mean--first, you ignore me? And then you yell when I save your tiny human life? This is why I did not want to see you!” 

Behind him, Lance could hear the waters beginning to rise again, just a little, roaring faintly. He tried to calm himself down before he got too out of hand. 

“I try to be your friend in the cave and then you leave me? That is not what a friend does. You are worse than the worst of humans. I--”

This time it was Shiro who interrupted. If it had been anyone else Lance probably would have tried to bite--or worse, drown--them, but Shiro reminded him enough of his older brothers to get him to listen. So instead of lashing out, he curled his talons in the sand and scowled. 

“Alright! Enough. Everyone’s upset, and we all made mistakes. But we gotta calm down if we’re actually going to work this whole thing out, okay?”

“Nothing would have to be _worked out_ if he hadn’t freaking tackled me in the cave,” Soreiee grumbled under his breath. 

Somehow Lance knew he should have just let it slide, but Lance was not one to just back down. “Or perhaps I should have just eaten you. You intruded into _my home.”_ The last word was more hissed than it was spoken.

“How was I supposed to know?” Soreiee yelled. 

“Everyone _calm down._ Before I drag Keith to the hospital and make you all go with me.”

Shiro’s voice was deep, like thunder. The sound of it made them all freeze, Hunk and Pidge included. Hunk looked nervous, fiddling with one end of the cloth tied around his head. 

“I-I mean, that actually doesn't sound like a bad idea. He could have hit his head or something on that rock and. You know. Gotten a concussion? We all know what Keith is like when he’s not well and frankly no one likes to deal with that.” 

Hunk glaned at Soreiee and muttered a quick, “no offence” under his breath. 

Soreiee looked too preoccupied to notice. “If you take me there I won’t speak to you ever again. You know I can’t go there, Shiro.” 

Something about his tone made Lance tilt his head a little, and he peered at him intently. There was a hidden meaning to the words that Lance heard, but couldn’t understand. Did he still not know enough English to catch it? 

Shiro understood it, though. He sighed and placed a hand on Soreiee’s shoulder. Soreiee shook it off. 

“I’m sorry. You know I don’t mean it.” 

Quiet settled between the five of them after that. Lance didn’t quite know how, or why, but the mood had changed very suddenly. Maybe it was the way Soreiee sat there, wet with the sand sticking to his red human clothing, looking very miserable--and not just because he had nearly drowned. Now it was because of something else entirely. Somehow. 

It didn’t matter if Lance was still more angry at him than he had ever been at anything else before. He still hated to see someone so upset.

So, after a little bit of mental debate, Lance decided that maybe he could wait just a _little_ bit longer before he did the yelling he'd been wanting to do for so long. Besides, it wasn't as satisfying if Soreiee was already upset about something else. Because then he wouldn't be focused as much. And Lance wanted his entire attention for that.

Leaning forward, Lance wriggled in the sand until he was right up next to Soreiee who sat there staring down at his hands. Droplets of water ran down his hair and splattered in the sand.

“Soreiee, for what it is worth… I am sorry for what happened in the cave. I am glad I did not eat you. You probably would not have tasted very good anyway. But I am still glad, because I would still like to be your friend. Even though I am still very angry at you, and I will probably yell at you about it later when you are not as sad... So you should not think I am just going to let that go.” He finished his last sentence with a frown, to show that he was serious. 

The human looked up at him with confusion in his eyes before he seemed to realize something. “...Sure. I guess? But... my name is Keith.” 

_“WHAT??"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to write this today because it was the only thing I could do with all the lights off because it was too hot to have them on. Like, it was over a hundred degrees when I left work today. Thankfully I had a day shift, so I could bus, but I gotta close tomorrow and that means I have to bike in the same weather. I will probably die. 
> 
> (Kidding. I'll bring water with me and wear shorts.)
> 
> Anyway! I've been complaining about the heat all day so I'll be quiet now about that. Sorry.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is a Master Comforter

If Keith didn’t have a headache before, he certainly had one now. Why didn’t anyone bother warning him about how loud and _ear-piercing_ merpeople could get when they were upset before one decided to tackle him in a cave? Keith held the Universe and the Fates at fault. He was sure they had something to do with it. 

After breaking the news to his… new merman… friend, if that was what Keith could call him, Lance had been practically inconsolable. 

_“You let me call you Soreiee for weeks,”_ Lance cried. _“You didn’t even try to stop me!”_

To be honest, Keith had mostly forgotten about that part of the incident in the cave. Frankly, it seemed pretty unimportant at the time. But it was beginning to become apparent very quickly that Lance thought otherwise. 

“Um… sorry. I… didn’t really think it would be an issue.” Keith patted Lance’s back, tense and unsure. It was probably the best job he had ever done at comforting someone in his entire life. 

The scales scattered across Lance’s back were, surprisingly, not very slimy. They were smooth and shone like jewels, and Keith kind of wanted to trace them with his fingers. He told himself not to because that was weird and there were other things to focus on, and he still wasn’t entirely sure Lance wouldn’t bite him. The merman’s teeth looked sharp. 

Keith was surprised when his efforts seemed to work; Lance stopped wailing after a while, and he learned into Keith’s touch. Maybe he wasn’t as bad at this as he thought. 

(On second thought, Keith probably was. The others were looking at him strangely.) 

At last, when things finally settled down--again--Pidge decided it was her time to speak up. 

“Wow, I can’t believe you just made a merman cry.” 

Keith shot her a dirty look. 

“This… changes things, doesn’t it?” Hunk started before they began to bicker again. “Like, now we don’t have to sneak around anymore. Which is good, I didn’t really like that.”

“None of us did,” Shiro added at the end. He glanced at Pidge quickly, although Keith could have sworn he didn’t mean to. 

Pidge noticed the glance anyway. She tugged at the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt. “I didn’t mean to, guys. Really. But Lance was really, really, _really_ insistent that we didn’t tell him yet. I never knew why. I mean, we know now… kind of?” 

Now all their eyes were on Keith and Lance, and it made him squirm a little in the sand. Lance didn’t seem to notice. He was busy rubbing at his eyes. 

“Sor--Keith and I met. In the cave,” he said eventually. “A little… no, few. A few weeks ago.” 

The memories surfaced again, and Keith struggled to keep himself from grimacing. “It didn’t go very well.” 

“It went _very_ well,” Lance insisted, and he finally looked up. “We even gave each other gifts.”

Somewhere behind him, Keith could hear Hunk trying to fight back a laugh. 

“Gifts?” Shiro inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes!” Brightening almost instantly, Lance pointed to the glow-in-the-dark necklace that he wore. “He also gave me those shiny silver things called _keys._ I gave him his own keys too. And a funny little black rectangle.” 

Pidge echoed his last sentance. “...Black rectangle? You mean…”

Keith realized what she was getting at before she was done speaking. “No,” he said, “don’t say it. You really don’t have to.” 

“I really think I do,” she answered. 

“Do what?” It was Hunk who spoke this time. 

_“That was how you ruined your phone?”_ Pidge exclaimed at last. “You let a merman drop it in the ocean! You didn’t forget, you filthy liar!”

As Keith felt his cheeks flush red, he only vaguely heard Lance ask what a phone was and Shiro say, “You lied about knowing Lance. I don’t think any of us are really in the position to be pointing fingers.” 

“What is a phone?” Lance repeated. 

“Something that shouldn’t be in the ocean,” the shortest of them answered. “I can’t believe this.” 

They had been on this topic longer than they needed to; Keith decided it was time for them to move on to something different. “The _point is,_ we met before any of you guys,” he said. “There. That’s it. There’s nothing more.”

The merman, on the other hand, apparently wasn’t having it. He leaned forward, stretching across Keith’s lap to tug at Shiro’s sleeve. “S...Keith is _lying._ There is so much more. You keep leaving out the fact that we exchanged gifts!” 

He was putting a lot of importance on that fact, but Keith didn’t understand what he was trying to say. They got it; he and Lance gave each other gifts. That was all there was to it, really. 

Merpeople were weird, and if Keith had to tell the truth, he was glad they only knew one of them.

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith said finally, and he patted Lance’s shoulder a little less awkwardly than before, just for the hell of it. “They get it.”

“We exchanged gifts and then you ignored me,” Lance cried, and Keith was afraid there would be tears again. His glittering blue tail slapped against the sand again, distraught. “Like some brainless fish.”

Keith bit back his tongue before he said something he would have probably regretted. 

“Keith,” Shiro suggested. “Maybe you should apologize.”

“Wha--but I did!” His voice cracked against his will.

“Yeah, Keith,” Hunk said, smiling a little despite his best attempts to hide it. “Apologize to the merman.” 

If it were any other situation, Keith would most definitely have said “No, no way” and left without another word. But Lance was still stretched across him, gripping Shiro’s shirt sleeve like a child, and he was getting Keith even more damp--if that were even possible. 

...Also, Lance looked absolutely _pitiful._ Who knew that a fish could look so sad? 

“Fine.” Keith gave in with a sigh, throwing any pide he might’ve still had to the wind. “Lance, I’m sorry.”

Lance moved his hand from Shiro’s sleeve to Keith’s knee instead, and Keith wasn’t sure if it was an improvement or not. He seemed to freeze for a little bit, as if he were thinking about something very, very hard. Then the merman smiled very suddenly and brightly, with very white, sharp teeth, as if he had just come up with the best idea in the entire history of the world.

And then, before Keith could do anything to stop him, Lance leaned forward and pressed his lips to Keith’s cheek before he even knew what was happening. 

“It is fine, Keith. You just are not allowed to do it again.”

Lance took off in the water after that, leaving him surrounded by a group of bewildered and confused friends who were demanding an explanation for what had just happened while he sat there, too stunned to do anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Here's chapter 15. 16 will probably be up by Sunday, my next day off :)
> 
> I'm gonna be working a lot next week! On the weekend of the eclipse, the company I worked for changed their plans. No more 24-hour shifts, thank god, but we'll be open from 5 AM to midnight. My shift next Saturday will be from 3:30 PM to 12:30 in the morning. I won't be home until one.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has a lot to figure out. Like why a merman kissed him.

It wasn’t until after Keith got to the house that he realized he really did have a headache after all. 

“You probably hit your head,” Shiro explained. “I told you we should have taken you in.”

“It’s just a _headache,_ it’s nothing. I’ll take an ibuprofen. Now leave me alone, I gotta change into something dry.” 

But Shiro leaned against the closed front door, and seemed perfectly content to not do that at all. “Nope. I don’t think so. You almost drowned out there, you know. I’m not just gonna leave you after all of that.” 

When Shiro set his mind to something it wasn’t any use trying to change it. Keith had spent enough years in the past trying to do just that, and he knew nothing he did was going to work. 

So instead of arguing, Keith decided to spare a little bit of energy and scrounged around in the kitchen instead, trying to find something that looked relatively edible. It turned out to be some leftover macaroni and cheese and two unopened bottles of red Gatorade (the best kind.)

“Whatever,” he said eventually, putting the food on the counter without any finesse. “Help yourself. Gonna go change.” 

It wasn’t until he had shut and locked the bedroom door behind him that Keith let himself flop onto the bed like a dead fish, which... was kind of what he smelled like. 

Groaning, he ran a hand through his hair. It was mostly dried now from the wind down at the beach, and knotted worse than it had ever been. The salt in the air also made it sticky. In fact, almost _everything_ about him was sticky; it was gross. 

He needed to shower. And sleep for a thousand years, at least. And avoid the ocean for a while again. 

Well, clearly the last one was a bad idea. Keith learned that the hard way today. Although looking back on it all, it probably could have been worse. Probably. At least Lance didn’t let him drown. That was one good thing, right? And at the end of the day, he didn’t hate him. They were friends… well, at least sort-of friends. 

Keith purposely refused to think about how Lance’s lips had pressed against his cheek before he took off back into the water. He liked to tell himself that he must have imagined it instead, because there was _no way_ that the merman had kissed him, and besides, it had happened so quickly that he was almost able to convince himself it was all made up after all. 

...And then he remembered how the others had stared at him like _he_ had suddenly grown a tail too, and then they were all talking at once, and it wasn’t doing anything to help him feel any less overwhelmed. 

“Keith,” Hunk said, serious. “...you just got kissed by a merman.” 

_Yeah,_ was what Keith thought. _I know. I was there._

“Was it wet? Like a fish or something?” That was Pidge, asking curiously. 

But Keith deemed neither of them worth of an answer. “M’tired,” was all he said instead, and then Shiro was there, helping his sorry waterlogged self to his feet. 

Hunk and Pidge tagged along the journey hope before they branched off to go to their own houses, talking about what had happened down at the beach. He tried his best to ignore their voices. It wasn’t something he had really wanted to think about. 

Shiro seemed to understand at least; he didn’t say much of anything, really, only telling the others to get home safe when it was their turn to leave and asking Keith if he was feeling okay more often than he needed to. It was a welcome change, a tiny bit of normal in a swirl of what was definitely _anything_ but normal. 

And Shiro was still there, waiting patiently as ever in the kitchen while Keith moped in his room about like an angsty teenager because… he was kissed by a merman. 

For some strange reason, the thought made his face heat up a little. He brought a hand up to where Lance’s lips had been and hated how warm his cheeks were. 

“Keith? You okay in there?” 

He sat up quickly, noticing for a second the damp spot on his comforter because of his clothes and groaned at having to change the bedding later tonight. 

“...Keith?” 

So maybe Shiro wasn’t _quite_ as patient as usual today after all. Or Keith had just worn him down too much. Which wouldn’t be very surprising. 

“Y-yeah! Hang on!” 

Stripping quickly, Keith changed into the first dry clothes he was able to get his hands on; a red hoodie, gym shorts and gray socks. He grimaced when he caught sight of himself in the mirror, his black hair a wild mess and specks of gold sand that stood out against the dark. A shower was sorely needed. 

Keith flung the bedroom door open before Shiro decided to break it down himself, which was something no one doubted he would be able to do. In the hall, his friend looked relieved to see him alive and… well, just alive. He had one of the bottles of Gatorade in his hand, the cap still closed, and held it out.

“You need a shower,” Shiro said when Keith took the bottle. “And a lot of conditioner.” 

There was an oblong pill in the palm of Shiro’s prosthetic; ibuprofen. Keith took that too, gratefully, and he downed it with the sports drink. “Thanks. Tell me something I don’t know.” 

“I still want to take you in. To urgent care at least, if you won’t go to the hospital. Although that would be preferable--” Shiro paused a little when Keith shot him a look. “...but I know I can’t force you to go there. To get looked at, that’s all. You could have hit your head--”

“Fine,” Keith cut him off. “To urgent care only, if it’ll stop your hair from turning any whiter, old man.” He was starting to get tired of Shiro's fussing.

Shiro looked relieved despite his efforts to hide it, and he gave a small smile. “Lord knows it’ll happen soon enough anyway. No thanks to you.” He put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Come on, then. Let’s go.” 

\----

Lance tore into the pale flesh of a crab that had been smashed open with a rock. He was hungrier than he realized; just how much time had he spent with his human friends? 

It must have been quite a while. The little light allowed in the cave poured in through the rocky mouth, but it was growing dark and was more red than blue. Soon the sun would be gone, and then Lance could look at the stars. The sky had been clear all day, and night would probably stay like that, too. 

The merman shoved a small handful of crab into his mouth. Was Sor--no, Keith. Was… Keith eating too? Maybe peanut butter cookies? Humans had to eat more than just that, but the only human food Pidge brought down to the beach were the cookies. 

Well, he knew they ate fish--at least, he assumed they did. Sometimes he would swim a little further out and watch the giant white things called _ships_ go by. They always had humans on them, with thin little sticks that they threw out into the water. Every once in awhile, a human would start to pull on the stick in his hand until a fish popped out of the waves, attached to one end. 

It must be a very thrilling activity for humans, because they made loud noises of excitement and held the fish up like trophies afterwards. Sometimes the humans tossed the fish back, but not always. Eating them was the only thing Lance could guess that they did with them. 

Did Keith like fish? Or did he prefer peanut butter cookies, like Pidge? 

Now that Lance thought about it, as he sprawled out in the cave dining on shellfish, there wasn’t very much that Lance knew about him. Not at all. What sort of gifts was he supposed to give him? The wrong one would send him away in the blink of an eye. And the right one…

Lance toyed with the glowing necklace idly with one hand, and he smiled a little to himself. 

Well, now that Keith had promised he wouldn’t run away again, he would just have to see how that all played out and hope it went in the right direction.

It was early in the next morning when Lance was given an opportunity to learn more about his human. 

The sun had hardly risen. It was still hiding behind the mountains, casting a gray color over everything, even the water. Lance wasn’t able to sleep very well, despite how exhausting the day had been before. He woke early from vague, hazy dreams about swimming through deep waters and his family ahead of him. Only it wasn’t his family. It was just one, and it wasn’t a merperson; it was a human in red with black hair. 

He decided a little bit of a morning swim would do him good, if sleeping wasn’t going to be an option. 

The tide was still high, and with how early in the morning it was, there were no humans to be seen on the beach. Lance calmed the waters a little as he swam, putting extra care into stretching out his arms and tail. He had slept curled up too long; they were stiff and a little tense. 

Overhead, seagulls were flying and they called to each other as they passed by. Lance watched them soaring, swooping and fighting over some morsel of food. He was so caught up in admiring the birds that he didn’t even notice two humans scramble down from the sand dunes to the water until they called out to him.

“Lance!”

Turning his head quickly, Lance caught sight of Pidge and Hunk making their way to the edge of the water; two little smudges of green and yellow. He gave a happy little trill without realizing it, diving into the waves and popping up closer to the sand. 

Pidge gave an enthusiastic wave as they met on the beach with Hunk following behind her. She had a bag slung over her shoulder like usual, filled with human items that Lance would be eager to get into on any other day. 

“Good morning,” Hunk greeted first as he spread a blanket out to sit on.

“May your waters be calm and still,” Lance responded easily with his own merfolk expression, and he slid up to his friends. “Where is Keith?” 

“We tried to get him to come with us, but Shiro said he wasn’t feeling up to it. He has a concussion. Only a mild one, though. Really minor.” Pidge was busy searching through the contents of the bag while she spoke. 

One of the words was unfamiliar to him. “Con...cuss...ion?” 

“He hit his head on something yesterday, probably the rock,” Hunk explained. “Got his brains knocked around a bit. Not that he has a whole lot of them to begin with.”

“That sounds… serious.” Lance frowned; Keith was sick?

Pidge pulled out a package of cookies and ignored the disapproving look Hunk shot her when he saw them this early in the morning. “It can be, but he’ll be fine. Said he was gonna be here tomorrow.” 

The news was a weight of disappointment in his chest, and the peanut butter cookie Pidge handed to him couldn’t do anything to get rid of it. After all that, and still no Keith today?

But he promised to be at the ocean again tomorrow. Lance waited longer for something before; he could last that long. And besides, it meant that he would have more time to decide on a new gift to bring him. Speaking of which… 

Nibbling on the cookie with his teeth, Lance decided it was time to ask questions. “What type of things does Keith like?” 

Pidge choked on a cookie at the inquiry. “W-what was that?”

“Keith,” Lance repeated. “What kind of things does Keith like?” 

Hunk gave him a look, as though he was suspicious about something. “You don’t have any shame at all, do you?” 

“This is important,” Lance said seriously. “I have to know, so that I can find him the right gift.” 

Once she was recovering from the cookie, Pidge cleared her throat a little. “This whole gift thing… it’s really important to you, isn’t it?” 

Lance nodded. “Gift-giving is a crucial part of courting in the eyes of my kind.”

This time it was Hunk who choked, inhaling too much water from the bottle he had. Pidge just laughed as if she had heard the best joke in her life. 

"Oh my god," she said, breathlessly between laughter. "I knew it! I knew something had to be going on!" 

Lance sat there and waited patiently for his friends to pull themselves back together again. It took longer than he would have liked, but the day was still early. When they managed to recover, he was using one long talon to draw scribbles into the sand. 

"Keith likes knives," Pidge finally said when she got her breath back. "He took lots of classes on self-defense and whatnot when he was younger. And he likes to beachcomb, too."

"Knife?" 

Hunk grabbed a notebook Pidge had lying on the blanket, and flipped it open to the first blank page. He picked up a pen and scratched it against the notebook for a little while, and when he was done held it out for Lance to see. 

"This is a knife," he said, and Lance looked at the drawing intensely for a moment before an idea came to him. 

"Oh! I know what to do!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments I've gotten lately! I promise I'll respond to them; my schedule is gonna be really crazy the next two weeks because of work. But I'll answer them after all of that has settled down. I probably won't be able to write a lot until then either, so I tried to make this chapter longer than usual.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith doesn't like crowds and--oh! Hello, Shay, it's always nice to see you

Keith woke up two days after nearly drowning with his head feeling a lot better. Shiro advised him to take it easy for a while, but Shiro wasn’t in the house, and therefore Keith had no one to stop him. 

Besides, he was an adult. He could do what he wanted. Within reason. That included going out. Not that Keith was really ever big on doing that, mind you, but Hunk stopped by the day before to share how displeased Lance was that he wasn’t there with them on the beach. A repeat of what happened last time didn’t sound very good to him, and Keith decided he was going to visit before the merman got too upset. 

But he couldn’t _just_ go on down to the water. Lance had made it very clear that he was big on the gift-exchange thing. Even Hunk mentioned it casually in passing, and Keith wasn’t so dense that he was unable to pick up on it. 

Well, then. A gift it was. 

That was why Keith ended up going out the door and headed into town, just like before when all he wanted to do was get his phone and keys back. On the way out he made a move to pocket his knife, but his hands only found empty air where it used to lay on the kitchen counter. 

Oh, yeah. He still hadn’t been able to find it. It was frustrating, really. Keith may have been a little absent-minded on occasion, but he never lost the knife before. It meant too much to him to do that. But then again, he also misplaced his jacket for three weeks once only to discover he left it outside hanging on the back of a chair to dry. 

(He had to wash it again after that. It had been sitting there so long it smelled like salt, and Keith didn’t appreciate it very much, especially not when Pidge called him a “salty boy” when he tried to wear it out that evening.) 

But nevertheless, it seemed like the knife was determined not to be found, and Keith would have to go another day without it. He pocketed a different knife instead with a shiny blue handle, made sure he had his phone and wallet, and left. 

Keith really did hope he found it soon, though. It still made him anxious knowing it wasn't in his pocket, and all his friends knew what it meant to him. It was something he couldn't just replace... but Keith didn't have the time to worry over that again today. 

It was cloudy outside. That meant there were less people outside than usual. But given that most of the weather was cloudy, there wasn't much of a difference than usual. Groups of people swarmed the sidewalks, and Keith wove his way past families with screaming kids that had sticky hands from melting ice cream.

Finding a gift for Lance was harder this time around. Before it had been easy; Keith just wanted his things back, and he chose the most eye-catching objects he could find. He was still proud of the glowing necklace Lance seemed to have taken to.

But this was different; Keith didn't even know what Lance liked. What if he brought him something and it ended up being offensive? And then he would get eaten, or worse, fed seaweed again.

Before Keith could make up his mind on where to go next, he had to duck out of the way of a small group of people around his age. They didn't even seem to notice he was there, and Keith had to slip into a shop to his left or end up pushed out into the street and get run over by a car.

The shop it was. 

Making a narrow escape, Keith breathed a small sigh of relief as the door closed behind him with a small chime of a bell. The first thing he noticed was the quiet that he hadn't been able to get outside; it was nice. And the place smelled of dragon’s blood incense. 

(Not that he burned it at his own house often enough to recognize the scent. Nope. Not at all.)

When Keith turned around to see where he ended up, he was not expecting to find shelves of crystals and stones on display, nestled neatly in small wooden boxes. 

At the counter in the center of the store, a young woman looked up from the book in her hand. From the expression on her face, she was feeling just as surprised as Keith. It seemed that she wasn't expecting any customers to walk through the door.

“O-oh,” she said a little nervously, setting the book aside. “Sorry. Welcome to Balmera’s. Can… can I help you find anything?”

Keith peered at the name tag pinned to her green shirt; _Shay._

“Um… kind of? I-I’m looking for a gift. For a… friend.” Since that was what Lance decided they were now. 

Shay seemed to pick up on his discomfort, and smiled a little more easily. “I can help you with that. Was there something you had in mind?”

She left the counter, and made her way to the shelves near one end of the store. Keith followed after her. “Er. Something colorful, maybe? I don't really know… about this type of thing.”

_About gift-giving or geology._ Thankfully, Shay didn't pry for a further explanation. 

“Well, we certainly have some of those. There's calcite, for instance. And quite a few different types of quartz. It's one of the most common minerals in the world, you know…”

Keith watched as she carefully placed each mentioned specimen in the palm of her hand, one at a time as if they were the most precious things in the world. 

“Those are… pretty,” Keith agreed, and he meant it. Who knew quartz could be yellow? But none of them were really standing out to him. At least, not when he asked himself, _What would Lance really like?_

Glancing over his shoulder, Keith saw the display case in front of the counter. There were all sorts of things there; crystal skulls of various colors he found a little unnerving, spheres that ranged from the size of a glass marble to a baseball, those salt lamps people seemed to love…

And something else. 

Keith wandered away from Shay to kneel in front of the case, and peered at a small crystal carving with colors in bands of blue and purple and green. It had been cut and sanded down into the shape of a small fish with a large, gaping mouth and bulging eyes. 

“How much is this one?” he asked, pointing to the carving. 

“Oh, the fluorite? He's been there for a while.” Shay set the crystals in her hand on the counter, and she went around to the other side to unlock the case. The tiny fish stared at him when it was set on the glass, making the quietest _click._ “We marked the price down a little. He's fifteen.”

_Fifteen?!_ For that thing? It was a little larger than a strawberry. How could it cost that much?

Keith tried to hide his dismay. Sure, he had a job, but it wasn't like he was making a fortune. 

...But Keith did like the fish. Maybe it was its dumb, wide crystal mouth that made it look eternally surprised. And Keith wanted to get to the beach soon before the weather worsened, because it looked like there was a chance of some rain and he was sure Lance wouldn't be happy if he had to wait another day. 

Keith sighed a little, and he reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet, and he set a twenty dollar bill next to the fluorite fish. It was either this or waste more time shopping. And Keith never liked shopping very much.

\----

Lance was playing with a tiny shrimp, catching it in his hand and letting it go when he spotted Keith crossing the sand. 

_“Keith!”_ he said excitedly, smiling and waving a hand. He came after all!

The human he had been waiting (im)patiently for walked over towards the edge of the water as much as he could. Lance let the shrimp go on its way, and swam up to the shore. He kept his right hand clenched tightly closed, afraid that what he was holding might slip out of his grasp and sink. It was a bit heavy for its size. 

When Hunk showed him the drawing of a knife, he was a little embarrassed to admit that it took him longer to realize what he was looking at than he wanted to admit. But, to be fair, he was learning a lot in such a small amount of time, and Keith failing to uphold his end on the entire courting business never really left Lance alone. 

But, lo and behold, Lance still had the purple and black knife! He knew it would be perfect for Keith. He was going to love it. 

“Um, hi.” Keith sat down in the sand where it was dry, and Lance sat next to him as close as he could get. 

“Are your brains feeling better?” he asked, peering at Keith’s forehead. How did human’s brains get… what was it Hunk said? Knocked around, in the first place? Humans were much too fragile. Lance was amazed they had survived so long. 

His human reached up and pressed a hand to the side of his head. “What? Oh. Yeah… thanks, you know, for helping me back there.”

Lance smiled. “I’m glad your brains were not damaged from the drowning,” he said. “Hunk said you do not have a lot of them.”

Keith sputtered then, scaring Lance because it sounded like he was choking on water. But how was it possible when they were on land? His face was flushed red too, almost as red as the jacket he wore. 

“You are not drowning again, are you? What-what am I supposed to do when humans drown on land??” 

Waving him away, Keith thankfully was able to stop land-drowning not too long after and he got air into his lungs again. 

“S-sorry,” he said. “You just surprised me, that's all. A-and don't listen to Hunk.”

Lance blinked and he dug his claws into the sand, playing with it absent-mindedly to give himself something to do. “Why? I like Hunk. He helped me. I think he is very smart.” 

“Helped you... with your English?” 

With a smile, Lance shrugged. It was something he had seen his friends do, and while it was strange to him, he learned that it was basically another way to say “I don't know.” Or just avoid answering questions.

Keith gave him a look and Lance wasn't able to place it before he was diving into his jacket, feeling around for something before holding it out in a clenched fist. 

“I, uh, got this for you,” he said awkwardly. “To… say thanks. For helping me then.”

A gift! Lance brightened up immediately.

“I have something for you too,” Lance replied, and he held out his own hand, still wrapped around the knife. 

But Keith didn't seem to be listening. In fact, he was rambling, and Lance came in only part of the way through the conversation when he realized Keith was still talking. 

“...sorry. I mean, I don't really know what you like… so if you think it's bad that's okay and I’ll find you something else. But I hope this works? I’m not very good at this…”

Keith still had his hand out, but now it was open and sitting there was a very small… thing.

It was semi-transparent and colorful, like different types of sea glass somehow mixed together. For a moment Lance had to look at it, trying to figure out what it was, before it came to him. 

“Is that a _fish?_ ” Lance stared at the tiny shining thing in Keith's hand with amazement. By the tides, it _was!_ A little colorful human-made fish! 

Keith held it out to him some more for him to take it, and Lance hid the knife under his tail before using both hands to hold it up close to his eyes. What was it made out of? How was it done? 

“What is it?” Lance asked, turning it over in his hand. What little light that made it through the clouds bounced off the tiny fissures inside it, making rainbows. 

“A type of crystal,” Keith answered. He paused, trying to recall something, and then said, “...it was called… fluorite, I think. Some humans like to collect it.”

“It is very pretty,” Lance beamed at him, running his fingers over the carved scales. It was smooth. He liked it. “Thank you. A thousand times, thank you.”

At the sound of Lance’s words, Keith smiled. It wasn't as uncomfortable as awkward as he had been in the past; it was genuine and reached his eyes.

Lance decided he liked that even more than the crystal fish. 

Eager to keep the smile in place, Lance brought his own gift out of hiding and held it out.

“This is for you,” he said, and suddenly felt a little embarrassed. Gods, Lance hoped his face wasn't looking as blue as his tail. He hated it when he blushed; his sisters used to tease him for it.

But Keith wouldn't have been able to tell anyway, because he wasn't even looking Lance in the eye. Instead his gaze was locked in the knife sitting in Lance’s open palm. 

“...How did you get this?”

The tone of Keith's voice sounded strange. Lance peered at him closely before he said, “I found it one night. On the beach. I picked it up before the waves took it away.”

That felt like so long ago now, before all of this had happened. Ages ago. Lance almost forgot. 

Reaching out, Keith wrapped his fingers around the knife, as if he was afraid it might disappear. He used the little lever on the side, causing the blade to pop out and startling Lance a bit. Keith ran his thumb carefully along the edge, testing its sharpness and looking it over for any sort of damage.

“I-I made sure there was nothing wrong with it,” Lance said, searching for something to say to fill in the silence. “I would never give you something that was less than perfect--”

Keith finally made eye contact with him, and Lance was not expecting to look at him with an expression of absolute _relief,_ like he had been missing an important part of him for ages and he never thought he would get it back again.

“Thank you,” Keith said finally. “I--thank you. Really.”

His words weren't fancy or elegant, but they were as true as his smile. And for Lance, that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The store Shay works at is based off a crystal shop in Lincoln. Only it's called Prehistoric, not Balmera's, like you probably already guessed. I was as surprised to see Shay in the story as you were. 
> 
> (But I was happy to be able to include my crystal and rock obsession into this fic. I won't deny that.)
> 
> I did some research! I'm pretty sure fluorite is one of the crystals that is NOT soluble, so Lance should be okay with getting his little fish carving in the water. No accidental poisoning.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance, you poor, innocent little merman

Keith eventually fell into a semi-regular schedule. “Semi” specifically because he was pretty sure there was no way to call it normal exactly, but the pattern was one he could predict, and that was just about as much as he could ask for. 

His work schedule didn't change too much, and he still got yelled at almost daily by customers infuriated that they couldn't find the damn ketchup on their own, or something obscure that a grocery store wouldn't have anyway, much less in a tiny town like Altea. Dust still made him sneeze and the price-scanning gun still liked to beep annoyingly at him whenever he hit the wrong button on accident, but still. It was a job, and he was just as glad to have it as ever, especially with his recent investment in gifts for a particular merman living in a cave. 

It was about two weeks after meeting with Lance again that he ran into Shiro while stocking canned soup.

Keith seriously doubted Shiro found him on accident, as his friends had a habit of hunting him down to mess with him at work when they got bored. But Keith’s mind was a thousand miles away, and it was the last thing he had been expecting. 

The older man had almost given Keith a heart attack by putting a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. Mainly on what to bring Lance next. 

“Gah!” Keith jumped, spilling his armful of chicken broth. He turned around to see Shiro casually leaning on the shelf with a sly grin on his face. “What are you doing here?”

“Shopping,” Shiro answered simply. He lifted the little plastic basket with one hand for proof. “I’m looking for all-natural carrots without any GMOs. Do you know where I can find some?”

Keith shot him a dirty look. “Don't you dare.” 

Thankfully, Shiro decided he didn't want to torture him for too long. “Actually, I did have something to ask you, complete unrelated to carrots.” 

After giving him a long look, Keith went back to work, picking up the dropped cans that had scattered down the aisle. Shiro helped him, picking up one near his foot. 

“Well?” Shiro asked when he didn't get a response. 

Keith ignored him, childishly, just because he could and hummed along with the annoying song playing through the speakers overhead. 

“ _Keith,_ ” Shiro said, exasperatedly. “Come on. You're an adult.”

“So are you,” Keith answered at last. “But that didn't stop you from almost killing me.” 

“Actually, I’m only six. And I didn't even do anything. I just touched your shoulder. Barely.” 

Keith rolled his eyes. 

But Shiro was apparently satisfied with his response, and he took his chance to go along with his question anyway.

“We’re all going over to Allura’s tonight. You’ll come too, right?” 

The idea of fresh fries and vanilla milkshakes was too tempting of an idea to pass up, even if it meant he would have to stop being petty. 

“I assume you're off in a few hours? Unless you're closing,” Shiro continued, prompting a response. 

With all the cans back on the shelf, Keith finally turned to face Shiro. His head was tilted to the side, an eyebrow raised in inquiry. 

Keith shook his head and pushed back a bit of hair that got in his face. “No. I’m off soon, at six.” 

Taking his words as a “yes,” Shiro smiled a little. “Great. See you then.” 

Once the little floof of white was out of sight, Keith got back to work. He was still stuck on what to get for Lance; maybe his friends could help tonight. 

 

“Sooo, what’d you get your boyfriend?”

Keith choked on his mouthful of burger. “W-what?”

“Your fish,” Hunk continued, sipping on a glass of Pepsi. “We promised to go see him tomorrow. What’re you gonna bring?”

“He isn't my boyfriend. And I don't--”

Allura chose that moment to save him, swooping in with their order of the best milkshakes in the entire universe. With dessert in sight, Hunk laid off, and rubbed at a spot of motor oil on his arm.

“What are you four talking about so quietly? You're never quiet. You can't be up to anything good," Allura smiled at them. 

Keith felt his face go red while Pidge laughed quietly. 

Reaching for his ice cream, Hunk said, “We’re just discussing Keith’s boyfriend.” 

“I--stop saying that!” 

Allura smiled at Keith’s reaction. “That's adorable,” she said. “It took you long enough.” 

Pidge leaned across the table, narrowly managing to avoid tipping over her half-empty glass of lemonade to shove Keith's own burger in his mouth before he could say anything. 

“He has to find a gift for him before tomorrow,” Pidge said while Keith glared at her. “But we all know how much Keith sucks at that.”

“What did you get him last time?” Allura asked, stealing one of Shiro’s fries. He didn't seem to mind, but then again, he never seemed to mind anything when it came to her.

“A ring with moonstone,” Keith said distractedly. 

He remembered how Lance had reacted to it. Thankfully, rings apparently didn't have the same meaning to merpeople as they did to humans. It was something Keith probably should have looked into before he bought it, but Keith spotted the piece of jewelry at Balmera's when he went in again. It was a split-second decision, especially when he ended up getting distracted by Hunk who following eagerly in tow. The mechanic wanted to see the girl who worked at the shop after Keith talked about her a little. 

(“I bet she’s cute,” were his exact words as he tagged along.)

When Keith handed over the ring, Lance had peered at the stone curiously. “What is this called again?”

“Moonstone,” Keith had answered. What was what Shay said, right? Before Hunk ended up chatting with her for almost an hour. 

“It does not look like the moon,” Lance said eventually after examining it. He held it up in the light as the sun was beginning to go down. 

Keith had ended up smiling a little as he ran his thumb along the edge of the shark tooth Lance had given him. 

The ring, in the end, had been just as successful as the fish carving. Keith couldn't believe his luck; maybe he should start shopping at Balmera’s more often. 

If only his paycheck could allow it. 

By the time Keith returned to the present time, the others had moved on and were discussing Hunk’s progress on his car. Coran took a break from the kitchen, and was offering advice on the project. For the time being Keith was able to content himself with his own thoughts as he sipped on his milkshake. 

_What was he going to get this time?_

\----

It was raining again, and Lance worried Keith and Hunk wouldn't show up. After all, the waves were rough,despite all his efforts to still them a little. But nature had its own way of doing things, and it didn't care about Lance’s courtship agenda. 

But through the gray blur of the rain, he was just barely able to make out two little smudges of yellow and red on the shore.

_Maybe the weather isn't too bad after all,_ Lance thought as he went to greet them. It meant that there would be no other people on the beach. They had it all to themselves. 

Hunk stuck around for a little while after they got there, trying to keep the rain off by using his vest as some sort of cover. Eventually he jogged off in a hurry, muttering something about “leaving the parts out” and “gotta put them in the garage” and “rust.” 

Then it was only Lance and Keith, just like the two events before.

Lance smiled brightly and sprawled out in the sand on his stomach, curling his tail up a little and flicking water at Keith. Not that it would have made much of a difference, considering the rain, and he was already soaked despite just getting there. He was using his red jacket in the same fashion Hunk had tried to utilize the vest. The results were a little better, but his hair was still plastered to the sides of his face. 

Lance liked it. Even if Keith clearly didn't. 

“How are you?” he asked finally, propping his head up on one hand. 

“Fine,” was Keith's answer. Short responses were something Lance was used to by now. “Wet.” 

Humans, Lance was beginning to realize, didn't like water nearly as much as he did. It was a shame; Keith was really missing out. 

Holding out one hand, Lance presented his most recent courtship gift proudly. It was a scale from his own tail; it had been itching and driving him mad for days before it finally fell off in the cave the night before. Usually Lance kept them with the rest of his collection, hidden safely away, as it was a convenient way to keep track of the years. Merpeople's scales darkened gradually as they got older until they reached full maturity, and judging by the shade of the new one that had grown in, he had only another year or so to go before the color stopped changing. 

But as Lance had looked the scale over, he had other ideas. He wasn't going to lie; he always knew his scales were pretty. And the little crystal fish in the cave was pretty. So was the funny moonstone ring sitting on his finger, even if it didn't look anything vaguely similar to the moon that hung over his head at night. (Humans must have terrible eyesight, Lance decided, if they really thought that was what the moon looked like.) 

Keith had given him pretty things; lovely things, really. Wasn't it only fair that he returned the favor? 

“Is this…” Keith held the scale cautiously in his palm, as if he were afraid it would break. The care warmed his heart, even though Lance knew it wasn't necessary.

“It's one of mine,” he said proudly. “I know you were staring at my tail that day I saved you from drowning.” 

Keith's face went a little pink, but the rain made it go away quickly. He tucked it into his pocket and said, “It… it's beautiful, really. Thank you.” 

The positive reaction relieved an anxious weight that was sitting on Lance's chest. Most personal gifts weren't given until much later on, and Lance was worried it might scare Keith off. The response was a good sign. 

Before Lance could even think of something to say next, Keith was already digging through a bag he carried with him, muttering something under his breath. 

“Where is it?” he was saying. “I could have sworn…”

At long last, Keith managed to find what he was looking for. He held it out to Lance with the same enthusiasm that one might have if they were holding a fish that was dead on the beach for two weeks. 

“Here… this is for you.”

Lance reached out with one hand to take the object from him and looked it over. 

It was another human thing, but unlike anything Keith had brought before. It was perfectly square, and covered with brightly colored smaller squares. 

“...What is it?”

“A cube,” Keith said. “Well--it's actually called a Rubix Cube. It's a game that humans play. On land.” 

A game? Lance knew what games were. He remembered chasing his sisters through the tall sea grass that swayed with the waves, and daring each other to swim up as close to a frenzy of sharks as they could. 

(The last game lasted only a day before their father found Lance stroking the nose of a great white. He dragged them back to the rest of their pod, furious, but even despite the lecture they got that night couldn't dampen his mood.)

Lance knew what games were. And this… human cube was definitely the strangest sort of game he had ever seen. 

“How do you play it?”

Leaning over him, Keith pointed to a green square on one face of the cube. “You can move the little square stickers around by turning it,” he explained. “The goal is to get each side of the cube the same color.”

“Oh,” Lance smiled. “That doesn't seem too hard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started working on this at 1:30 in the morning so I hope it's okay


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More backstory, some angst, and some fluff

Keith was sitting in the cave, dangling his bare feet in the cold ocean water. He had a different jacket this time: a deep maroon hoodie, which did a lot more good at keeping the cold away than his usual one did. Even if he liked that one better. 

While Keith sat there, still nearly blind in the darkness, he ran his thumb over the shell in his hand. It was Lance’s latest gift; whole and unbroken, the color of pale pink. Whole ones were hard to find, and Keith wondered how long it had taken Lance to find it. 

He liked the way the ridges of the shell felt when he rubbed the pad of his thumb along the edge, and the smoothness of the concave underside. It also gave him something to do while he stared into the dark, fixing his sight on the faint glow of blue as Lance sat in the water, focused intently on the thing in his hand.

“Keith,” Lance said finally, his voice sounding childishly upset. “This is the worst game in… in forever.” 

Keith blinked, looked at the Rubix Cube in Lance’s claws, and then he laughed--a short, quiet sound of surprise, as it had been at least twenty minutes now and at this point he was beginning to think the rest of his visit would go by in silence. Lance, however, did not seem as amused. Instead he scowled at the puzzle, turning it over to look at all of the mismatched colors on the sides. 

“Sorry,” Keith said finally. 

The merman gave him an unimpressed look, and when he turned the cube over again, the light from the cave’s mouth flashed off of the moonstone ring sitting proudly on his right hand. He twisted one part of the cube, fiddled with it for a little, and when that didn't work he set it on the rock next to Keith’s shoes with a huff. 

“Not working for you very well, is it?” Keith tried again, but he wasn't able to sound as sympathetic has he wanted too, because Lance _pouted,_ and then pushed himself up out of the water and onto the rock next to Keith.

If he purposefully made sure to sit on the side where the Rubix Cube wasn't waiting patiently to torment him, Keith didn't say anything about it. 

“I will get it,” Lance insisted. “But you are here now. I can do that later, because right now I want to spend time with you.” 

Well, then. The sudden fondness in Lance’s words certainly hadn't been the reaction Keith was expecting--not that he wasn't even sure what he was expecting in the first place. They made him blush, and he felt his face grow warm. He was glad they chose to stay in the cave this time, instead of just meeting out in the open. The darkness hid that pretty well.

“U-um…” Keith stuttered intelligently, racking his brain for something to say that wasn't entirely stupid. 

...It didn't work. He came up empty. 

Lance was looking at him curiously, probably wondering why he was sitting there with his mouth open. 

But instead of teasing Keith for it like he was prone to doing and calling him something like "a dumb fish," Lance took him by surprise--again. This was just too much. 

The merman leaned forward, and reached out with one hand to push back the hair falling in Keith’s face, taking care not to scratch his skin with the sharp, blue claws. Once his bangs were out the way, Lance smiled brightly.

“I can see your eyes now. Your hair is always in the way. It… bothers me.” 

Keith stared. 

When he realized Lance was expecting an answer, Keith cleared his throat, and said, “...Sorry.” 

But Lance only smiled. “I think it is because your hair is too long,” he said. “Pidge said it is called a… mullet? You should have it cut.”

Any strangeness from the moment before was shattered just as quickly. Keith only scowled in response, finding himself back in familiar territory. 

“I like my hair the way it is,” he explained, finally able to put together a complete sentence. He eyed Lance, and at the short strands of brown hair that were beginning to dry, looking fluffy and soft. “Why is yours so short?”

“My… my sisters had long hair. It was always… hard for them to manage it.” 

The words sounded… hesitant. Like it wasn't something Lance wanted to say. Keith was never very good at the whole “emotions and empathy” stuff, but this was clear enough for him to notice. 

Keith tried his best to tread carefully. He paused, and watched the way Lance looked down and swished his tail through the water. His entire demeanor had taken a complete one hundred eighty degrees. 

“...You have a family?” 

Lance shook his head. 

“I used to,” he said softly. “I lost them… a long time ago.” 

Keith didn't know how to respond. 

“I… I’m sorry,” was the only thing he was able to think of repeating again, and he meant it. How do you comfort someone who’s lost everything? How long had he been stuck here, lost and lonely and waiting for someone to find him before he gave up hope of it ever happening?

Keith had lost people before. He had lost his parents, years ago, but he still had the others; Pidge and Hunk, Shiro and Allura and Coran. Keith had never truly been without family. And he loved the ones he had left as fiercely as he could. They knew it, and they understood, even if he wasn't the best at showing it. 

But Lance... didn't have anyone. 

“I miss them,” the merman said quietly. 

Just like before, when Keith didn't know what do down on the beach when they met again after he nearly drowned, he reached out and put a careful hand on his back. It was the most Keith could offer, and he hoped it was enough. 

Apparently it was, because suddenly he was sitting there with an armful of Lance as he pressed himself as close to Keith as he possibly could. Lance's arms were wrapped desperately around his middle in an effort to seek out the physical affection he’d been without for god knows how long. 

After a moment of hesitation that didn't last nearly as long as it did before, Keith lowered his arms and wrapped them around Lance in return, careful not to put too much force into it in case it startled him. 

It didn't. If anything, Lance nuzzled his face into the crook of Keith’s neck, and he took it as a positive sign. 

Lance was strange, yes. But that was really only because Keith had never come across anything quite like him before. And despite their… rather rocky meeting, it didn't take long for Keith to consider Lance as a friend. 

The thought caused a strange feeling in his chest, a little warm and almost like nervousness. Keith decided he didn't mind it.

\----

Lance wasn't sure how long they sat like that, silent and still in the cave, but outside the light was darker than it had been before. 

He shifted a little, his back stiff from leaning over so awkwardly. But Lance didn't mind it. Keith was _warm._ Almost unnaturally so. Were all humans like that? 

Keith noticed his unease. His grasp on Lance loosened, just a little. Just enough for Lance to move and sit up if he wanted to. 

Lance wanted to stay. But he moved anyway. As he shifted to get upright again, Keith moved his hands away and let them fall into his lap. 

“I’m sorry if… you know. I upset you or something,” he said.

His human had been apologizing for things a lot lately, and Lance didn't like it very much. Keith had nothing to be sorry for.

“No!” Lance said, louder than he intended. He grimaced before he went on. “You did nothing wrong. Except your hair. It has just… been a long time since I told anyone about my family. A very long time.” 

Lance fell into silence and looked down at his tail again. The glowing blue of the scales lit up the water around it, the same color as his family's. Color was often determined by genetics, and it was a constant reminder to Lance of what he didn't have anymore.

The weight of Keith's stare fell heavy on the back of Lance's head, and he glanced up to see a look of concern that wasn't something he was used to associating with him. 

“Everything is fine,” Lance assured, and he gave a bright smile. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Keith sounded confused. 

“For reminding me.” Reaching over, Lance squeezed one of his hands. “Sometimes it's easier to try to forget.”

It really was. Forgetting was less painful, and it was easier to look ahead. But Lance didn't want to forget. Not truly. His family deserved better than that, and besides…

He always promised he was never going to give up hoping to get back to them, where the waters were warmer and the skies were mostly cloudless and sunny.

“You know,” Keith started a little hesitantly. “...you can talk about them more whenever you want. I’ll listen. I know what it's like to… to lose people.”

That came as a surprise. A thousand questions bubbled up then, but Lance stopped himself from saying any of them aloud. That was Keith's story, and his story only to tell. Lance wasn't going to pry it out of him; he couldn't drive Keith away, not after all of this. 

So instead Lance squeezed his hand once more, and told him, “Thank you.”

The conversation flowed a little easier after that, and before Lance knew it, he was telling stories of his family. 

“My sisters all had long hair,” Lance repeated. “I do not know why. It was always difficult; swimming makes it tangled. That is why mine is short.” 

Sitting in the cave, side-by-side, Lance told him about the games they played with the sharks. About how he had to fight to get his younger siblings to eat their seaweed and how he made a friend in the shape of an adorable harbor seal who followed him around for a time. 

By the time the light was almost gone and the tides were beginning to rise, Lance led Keith back to the outside world and followed along around the rocks to be sure nothing would happen to him.

And when Keith finally left, he was alone again, but he slept soundly in his cave. He couldn't remember the last time his heart had felt so light, and he dreamed of sharks and warm water and the singing voices of his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a little shorter than the last few chapters. But hey, quality over quantity, right?
> 
> (Also, thank you for all the feedback I've gotten lately! It means so much to me and I hope I'm not letting you down)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This just in: Keith likes jellyfish. I mean, who doesn't?

At some point, Keith’s way of thinking went from, “What can I get so that the merman won't be upset” to “What can I get for Lance that he would actually like?”

He didn't know when it happened, but he was aware that it was a relatively recent change, and maybe only a little before the unexpected (but not unwelcome?) hug in the cave. 

Strange. 

“Keith? Are you okay over there, pal?”

Keith turned his head and squinted to block the sun out of his eyes. Hunk was looking at him questionably, probably because he was saying something and Keith hadn't been paying attention. This was becoming a regular habit as of late. 

“Sorry. What was it?”

Pidge sighed, exasperated, and slouched on the bench. “We’re _trying_ to decide what to do for lunch, but you're not paying attention and I volunteered to throw you into the shark tank.”

“Rude,” Keith answered, and he cracked open his water bottle for a drink while it was still cold. 

It was nice today, sunny and warm, which was rare for the coast. Judging by how cold it was getting lately, summer wasn't going to be around for much longer. The gang decided to take advantage of what was probably the last nice day and visit the aquarium a town over.

Unfortunately, everyone else seemed to have the same idea. The place was crowded; uncomfortably so, and the loud, voices of all the visitors made it hard to concentrate on anything else around him, especially out in the open air like this. Hence why Keith had found himself with his own thoughts for a bit.

“Hm…” Shiro began, and Keith thought he was going to say something adult-like and responsible, maybe along the lines of “Lay off Keith, everyone, he’s trying to sort out his feelings, now let's go get ice cream.”

But Shiro did not.

“Keith is too skinny to be very good shark food,” was what Shiro said instead. 

The Keith in question groaned to himself and wondered why he ever thought this would have gone any other way. 

“There's that chowder place in town!” Hunk said suddenly. “We can go there. Maybe we can fatten him up and then leave him for the sharks next time.”

The other two agreed that this was a good idea, the issue was settled, and then they continued on to look at the other exhibits. Keith tagged along without much input. When it came to food he didn't have much of a preference. Unless it was Allura’s diner. Or some fast-food place. 

But the others had a little more respect for themselves--at least, that was what they liked to say--and probably would have thrown him into the shark tank anyway if he actually dared to suggest McDonald’s, so he kept his mouth shut. 

The jellyfish exhibit was quieter than the chaos of outside, and the darkness of the rooms certainly helped Keith feel a little more like himself. While the others wandered off (“Shiro, look! There’s eels, they look like you,” were Pidge’s exact words as they walked) Keith found himself standing in front of the rounded, cylinder-shaped tanks, with his arms crossed over his chest and staring at the creatures inside. A dozen large, transparent moon jellies floated aimlessly in the filtered saltwater, sometimes colliding with one another. 

If Keith had to choose, he probably would have said that jellies were his favorite marine animal. There was something very soothing about them, the way they hovered around without a care in the world. No thoughts. No directions. Just floating.

When he was little, Keith’s mother would plug in a little night light projector that cast images of them on the ceiling. It helped him sleep when he couldn't, which was often. 

He kept the night light for years, long after he had grown out of his fear of the dark and into the age where most people thought it was strange for him to still have one.

When his mother died in the hospital, he smashed it with a hammer in the garage, and he avoided the aquarium for years after. 

_It’s been a long time since I thought about that,_ Keith realized with a jolt.

But he was a little surprised to notice that being there didn't sting as much as it used to. Now it faded to more of a dull ache; painful but manageable, and it was a little bit of a relief to know that eventually one day the thought of his father would fade to the same thing.

For a long time he thought it would never happen, considering he stayed so close to the ocean that they both loved. He refused to move in with his distant family because they were so far inland. How could they possibly expect him to leave this place? It would have been like leaving his parents behind. After everything, Keith made it a habit to go down to the beach more often. It helped him feel closer to them.

Now he had a different reason, though, and Keith was sure that Lance was one of the reasons why gazing at the moon jelly tank was easier this time than it used to be. There was more waiting for him in the ocean than there used to be.

Shiro called for him from the next room over, and Keith glanced at the jellyfish one more time before he followed after the others.

 

“What did you get him this time?” Hunk asked over a bowl of clam chowder.

Keith looked up and fought back a yawn. The sun had made him tired, and he was pretty sure he left with a sunburn. 

“Why do you always ask me that while we're eating?” Keith countered as he jabbed his fork into a plate of chicken alfredo pasta. 

Hunk rolled his eyes. “Um, because meals are kinda a social thing? We’re all dying to know how you and Lance are getting along and _neither_ of you are saying anything about it anymore. Also, this is the only time you can't just run away if we bring it up, so…”

That part was true; Keith ended up making it a habit to keep their meetings down at the beach to himself. He wasn't sure why, but for some reason they just felt… private. He didn't want to share them with anyone else. Especially the last time he had gone down to the beach, to the cave… 

At least Lance seemed to think to same way. 

But wait a second.

“I hope my English lessons were enough,” Pidge was saying. “He picked it up really fast. But--”

“What do you mean by ‘anymore?’ Lance talked to you about it?” Keith interrupted, setting his fork down with more force than he intended. It clattered on the plate and startled everyone at the table into silence. 

Something about his words caused a reaction from two of his friends. Pidge and Hunk both squirmed in their seats, and Keith caught them glancing at each other for just a second before they looked away just as quickly. 

There was definitely something going on.

“Well?” Keith insisted. In the seat next to him, Shiro quietly got the attention of one of the waiters and asked for the check. 

“It wasn't anything big, really,” Hunk started to say. “Just a little bit about… you know…”

“I don't know, not until you tell me,” Keith scowled. 

Pidge chose that moment to jump in. “He really didn't tell us a whole lot. And we weren't going to say anything. We didn't want to mess it up--”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Keith cut her off. “It's a little too late for that, whatever you're talking about.” 

Hunk put his hands up in a feeble attempt to placate him. “O-okay! Fine! Just calm down, alright? If it really bothers you that much we’ll tell you, but not out in public like this.”

At his side, Pidge frowned to herself and muttered under her breath. While Keith couldn't catch what she said, it sounded… disappointed?

“Fine,” he managed between clenched teeth. “But if you don't tell me the truth, I’ll ask Lance myself. And I’ll know if you lie. You’re really bad at it, Hunk.”

Shiro just sighed and massaged the side of his head. 

\----

The sun was warm on Lance’s back as he relaxed in the sand, his tail curled around him. Despite the nice weather, his beach was still empty--at least for now. If any unexpected humans made their way over, he was still close enough to the water that escaping wouldn't be any difficulty. 

But he would really rather that didn't happen; good days like this were a rarity and Lance loved sunbathing when he had the chance, especially here. The water was still so much colder than he was used to. 

Lying in the warmth, Lance found the sun was making him drowsy. It was soothing and relaxing, and despite knowing he shouldn't, the idea of sleep was not bad at all--

“Lance.” 

The merman sat up quickly, startled, and curled his tail around himself more for protection. But it was only Keith standing there, breathing heavily and sweating like he had just ran all the way there and his hair in his face. _Again._

“Keith!” Lance smiled brightly, pleased to find him there. The best Keith Visits were always the unexpected ones, and he was never unhappy to see his face. 

But the smile faded when Lance realized something was off. Keith had his hands at his sides, clenched into fists. He was standing stiff and unmoving, like he was ready to run away or attack at a moment’s notice. By now Lance had realized that these signs were not good when they were in their own. Doubly so when they were together.

Sitting up as tall as he could, Lance uncoiled his tail to seem as open and unthreatening as he could. 

“...Keith,” he said a second time, worried. “What is wrong?”

Towering above him, Keith stared at Lance for a time, he looked conflicted; like he was trying to decide if he should sort out his thoughts or just spit it all out at the same time.

“...T-the gifts,” was all he said at last.

What?

“Yes? What about them?” was the only thing Lance could think of to say.

“You didn't tell me,” Keith said, and to Lance he sounded _distressed._ “Didn't tell me what they were.” 

“They are gifts, silly human. That is not hard to figure out. You just said so yourself,” Lance pointed out. 

But his answer only seemed to aggravate him more.

“No! You-you didn't tell me they were some part of… of a weird… _courting_ thing.” 

The last words sounded choked, like he couldn't get them out of his throat. It drove a claw of icy fear into Lance’s chest and settled in the pit of his stomach, colder than even the freezing water of the ocean beside them. 

Eventually Lance was able to think of something to respond with. “...Of course they are. Everyone knows that, even a guppy could tell you so. Is this how you tell a joke? You are not very good at it, you know.”

Keith unclenched one hand and used it to run his fingers through his hair. It mussed the strands, making them messier than they already were, but Lance didn't say anything about that. He was too concerned and beginning to grow aware of the fact that there had been a very, very big misunderstanding somewhere along the way. 

“I’m not joking,” Keith insisted. “We… we’ve been _courting_ the entire time and _you didn't tell me_?” 

Lance’s fears were confirmed, and it shattered his heart at the same time. How could Keith not have known? It was so _obvious_! And besides, Keith was the one that started it all in the first place, coming back to the cave with those gifts so long ago. What else could he have meant?

Lance had responded immediately; how could he have not? Keith was so forward and Lance had been delighted. Of course he reciprocated, coming back up with gifts of his own to give. 

And besides, when he want to Hunk and Pidge-Pigeon for advice, neither of them told him that apparently things worked differently in human society. They were _eager_ to help. So why didn't Keith know, too?

“I-I thought that you knew,” Lance answered. “Why else would I have been so upset when you never returned?” 

It was all he could think of to say. 

“I don't know!” Keith yelled. It startled Lance, and he jolted back as the sound scraped at his ears. “I don't--humans don't do things like that!”

Lance felt something prick at the corners of his eyes. It wasn't a sensation he was familiar with, but it seemed to be a reaction to the way he was feeling. And he felt heartbroken. 

“So… what does that mean?” The words felt dry in his mouth. “None of this mattered. Is that it? You will just leave again.” 

The human in red huffed and he squeezed his eyes shut. He thought for a while, and each second of waiting for Lance was more unbearable than the one before. 

“...No.”

That wasn't what Lance was expecting. 

Keith continued before Lance was able to reply. 

“No,” he said again. “I won't just… I can't just… do that. Leave. I-I just _didn't know._ I can't up and leave the ocean, because it meant too much to me before. And… now it means even more.”

Lance just stared. 

Keith used both hands to comb through his hair this time. “I’m no good at this,” he admitted finally. “But you mean a lot to me now and I won't just run away, I just… I didn't know how important it was. I didn't know how to react.” 

The anger had dissolved in an instant, and now all that was left in front of Lance was a very tired-looking, distressed Keith. 

When he stood like that for a while and it didn't seem like he planned to move any time soon, Lance stretched his arm out as far as he could and tugged on the hem of Keith's shirt.

“Sit down, Soreiee,” he said finally. “I am sorry I did not think to explain it to you before. But I can now.” 

Keith looked at him, and Lance couldn't tell what was running through his mind. But he dropped his hands to his side and joined the merman on the sand. He didn't run away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooooo, things are finally revealed.
> 
> I probably won't update for the next week or so. Lots of working. So I decided to post this now before I have to go to work later today!


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff. Lots of fluff, and knives.

Keith’s hands played with a bit of driftwood that was lying next to his shoe. It gave himself something to do while he talked, since it seemed like this was going to be a long conversation. 

“So…” he began awkwardly. “Merpeople have, like… an entire courting… ritual-thing?”

Lance laughed at his wording. 

“Yes. And humans… do not?”

He thought about it for a little. Did dating count as courting? Keith didn't know. It wasn't like he had ever been in that sort of a relationship before.

“Um… kind of?” was his answer. “I mean, people date. They go places and spend a lot of time together.”

Lance thought about this. “And gift exchanging… is not a part of that?”

Keith felt his face heat up in embarrassment. “It can be,” he admitted. 

_Keith still couldn't believe he was accidentally dating a merman._

“But this is different,” he insisted as he went on. “It isn't really as important. Some flowers sometimes. Or candy. Little things.”

At his side, Lance shifted his tail around in the sand. The scales glinted in the sun and Keith found himself staring at them. It was hard not to; they were rather eye-catching. Who could blame him? 

Keith forced himself to look away all the same. 

Lance, thankfully, didn't seem to notice. He was too busy frowning to himself, like he was trying to figure out what to say next. 

“That is very different,” Lance said at last. “For us, gift-giving is… very important. At first they are small things, like you said. Tokens of affection. But as the courtship goes on, they become more personal.”

If Keith hadn't been paying close enough attention, he wouldn't have noticed Lance run his hand over his tail, absently as if he wasn't even thinking about it. The spot was a tiny, almost unnoticeable patch of darker blue on his scales. 

Keith remembered the scale in his jacket pocket. 

“What else?” Keith found himself asking. 

“Eventually the gifts become… symbols? Yes. In our culture, both partners have equal responsibility to care for each other. Both provide shelter and food and protection. Both help to raise the young. If they have any. If one partner brings a gift of food, and the other reciprocates and does the same, then they are joined."

In that moment, Keith was very, very glad he didn't bring anything of that sort as a gift. (He did think about it, but he didn't know what merpeople could or couldn't eat, and he really wanted to avoid accidentally poisoning Lance. And besides, Pidge was apparently already taking cookies down to the beach while she taught him English. Thank god she didn't know about what it could have meant in a different situation.)

“Oh,” was all Keith said.

“‘Oh’?”

“I-I mean, I just… didn't realize how important it was,” Keith stammered, scrambling for words. “It never occurred to me. I’m sorry.”

“I should not have assumed,” Lance said, unusually quiet. “I am the one who is sorry.” 

Silence grew between them, and for Keith it was mostly because he didn't know what to say, or what direction they were going to take next. But it seemed like there were two options in front of them: 

One, he and Lance could just stop this courtship/dating… stuff? And they could be friends, who shared stories about sharks and knives and warmer ocean waters. 

Or two, they didn't stop anything. 

_Well, that's an easy answer,_ Keith’s mind whispered. _It isn't like you can just go and marry a fish._

And the thought was correct, of course. There were too many issues with it. For one, Lance was a merman. In the ocean. With the whole fish tail and everything. And Keith was… just a human. With legs. On land. And--

When he looked over, Lance seemed to have deflated a little, slouching with his shoulders hunched forward and he looked… christ, he looked _sad._

Keith felt like his heart was in his throat. He still didn't like that at all, just like back in the cave.

...Wait a minute.

_Well, fuck._

Without realizing what he was doing, Keith reached out and placed one hand over Lance’s resting in the sand. Keith wrapped his fingers around it, tightly but careful not to hurt him, and the pressure made Lance look up.

“Y-you know,” Keith said. “You really… shouldn't be apologizing for anything.”

_What was he doing?!_ Keith’s thoughts were a chaotic jumble of screaming and fire alarms blaring. This was a bad idea, very bad, and Pidge would give him grief for the rest of his miserable life--

Digging into his pocket with his free hand, Keith felt the familiar smooth handle of a pocket knife. Not his mother’s purple one, but one he’s had even longer. It seemed appropriate, as Lance had given him one of his own scales.

Keith pulled the knife out but left it closed, and pressed it into the palm of Lance’s hand. In the sun the handle shone blue, glittering like the merman’s tail, if not just a shade lighter. 

“U-um. I know that you have your claws… and teeth. But. You know, just in case? Uh…”

Keith’s face was horribly warm, and it wasn't because of the sun. But Lance didn't notice; he was staring down at his hand, eyes wide like he couldn't believe what was sitting there.

Just as Keith was beginning to consider that _maybe_ he had messed up, even worse than he ever had in his entire life--which was really saying something--he felt the familiar pressure of Lance wrapping his arms tightly around him, just like before.

Keith returned the embrace, and neither of them said anything.

“Wait,” Keith said, and completely ruined the moment. “Then what does that mean about the seaweed you made me eat in the cave that first time?”

“Silly human,” Lance laughed, and he pressed his lips to Keith’s cheek. 

\----

After explaining that because the seaweed incident happened _before_ the actual courtship so it didn't “actually count” and calming his human down, Lance found with his fingers curled in Keith's hair. It had started with him asking to touch it, and somehow ended with him trying to comb through the strands with his claws. 

“Your hair is still too long and now it is all tangled,” he had said, and offered to fix it for him. 

Then Keith’s face got red again, but he let him, and there they were. It was something Lance was familiar with; with his sisters’ long hair, he was often with them, trying to make it a little more manageable and worked the knots out while taking care not to pull too hard. 

“I can cut it now myself,” Lance offered helpfully.

“That was _not_ why I gave you the knife,” Keith grumbled, and Lance laughed. 

They bickered after, words that lacked any venom, and Lance felt like there was nowhere else in the world that he would rather be. Eventually he decided Keith’s hair was acceptable, and he leaned back on his hands to admire his work. 

After the situation that had unfolded earlier, Lance felt as free and weightless as the seagulls that flew overhead. Though the decision Keith made had gone mostly unspoken, Lance wasn't an idiot. He knew what the knife meant, and it made him happier than anything else had in a very long time. The decision was why Keith didn't protest when Lance asked to play with his hair under the guise of "fixing it." It was why he didn't try to move away when Lance kissed his cheek, quickly and sweetly. 

Lance felt, at that moment, like he could do anything. 

Keith turned around to look at him, and when his eyes fell on him Lance remembered something in a flash. 

“Wait!” he exclaimed suddenly, startling Keith. “I forgot. Just--do not move. Wait here.”

Thankfully Keith was too thrown-off to do anything except make a series of sounds that could have been half-spoken, confused and jumbled words as he tried to piece his thoughts together. Lance dragged himself back to the edge of the waves (and was taking too long to do it; why did his tail have to be so heavy?) When the water reached him, he dove in and then he was off, towards the cave, where he had hidden something meant for Keith's next visit. Which was now.

Keith was still sitting there in the sand when Lance returned, the look of confusion and bewilderment still on his face. It was rather adorable, Lance had to admit, and something he probably did often.

“Sorry,” Lance said once he rejoined Keith on the sand, one hand clenched tight around something in his palm.

“Uh…” Keith blinked. “No… no problem, it's fine. You just… vanished.”

“I forgot.” As an apology for leaving so suddenly, Lance offered a smile and then he presented the thing he’d left behind; Keith’s new gift.

To be honest, Lance wasn't exactly sure what it was. It looked a little like the crystal fish Keith had given him, the color of pretty, dark purple. But it was only slightly transparent unless it was held in the light. For the most part it was opaque, covered in a frosted texture. He found it a couple of days ago, early one morning on the beach. The color reminded him of Keith's eyes, and when Keith turned to look at him earlier, his stare jogged the memory.

“Here,” Lance held it out to the human. “For you.”

Keith took the thing, and Lance saw the smallest hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

“A mermaid tear,” he said, so quietly amazed Lance almost didn't catch it.

“...A what?”

Clearing his throat, Keith looked at the confused merman. 

“Sea glass,” Keith explained. “It's… something I like to collect. But it's hard to find on this beach, and I’ve never found this color before. It… my mother called them mermaid tears when I was little.”

There was the beginning of a story there, waiting to be told, and Lance was always one for stories. He inched forward, attentive and eager and waiting for Keith to continue. 

“...My mom used to collect sea glass, too. But she told me a story about how it's made when mermaids cry when… a sailor drowns. Their tears turn into glass, and then the glass washes up on the beaches for humans to find later.”

Keith turned the glass over in his hand. “I-I mean, that's not how it really happens. Obviously. Humans used to dump tons of glass into the oceans when it wasn't usable anymore--not now,” he corrected, when he saw Lance’s look of disapproval. “But they used to. The glass broke up into small pieces, and the water caused a reaction with the glass that made it frosted.”

Holding the glass between them for Lance to take a look at it again, Keith ran his thumb over one smoothed ridge. “...I always liked the first story more though.” 

Lance closed his hand over Keith’s own. “I like it more too,” he agreed. “Your mother told very nice stories.”

The comment made Keith smile. “She did,” he said. “I miss them… thank you.”

They spent the rest of the day like that, and every time Keith brought his thumb over the glass or ran it lightly along his bottom lip, absent-mindedly as if he was remembering something, Lance knew he did well, and it made his chest feel warm even though the setting sun was leaving behind the cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's so much projecting in this fic I swear. I'm sorry. 
> 
> Guess where I got the story about the sea glass from? Yeah. My own mother. She told it to me when I was little and I've been collecting sea glass ever since. I don't have a very big collection, but that just makes it more exciting when I do find a new piece.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Pidge!

When someone beat on Keith's front door at eleven o'clock in the morning, on a day that he _didn't_ work, no less, he sat up in bed and knew that he was going to have to go into hiding, because he was about to murder someone.

That ended up not happening when he flung the door open, with probably too much force because it slammed against the wall. Standing outside on the front porch was Pidge, her usual bag tucked under her arm, one hand still raised to knock on the door like the hellion that she was. 

“You better have a good reason to be here,” Keith said monotonically. “Or we are going to have a problem.”

At least, that was what he tried to say. All that Keith really managed to vocalize was “You better--” because Pidge cut him off, stepping past him to come inside.

“So you're dating him, then? Like, seriously this time?”

Keith scowled at the back of her head. “No thanks to you,” he responded, dodging the first question.

Pidge dumped her bag on the kitchen table and turned around to smile at him like a kid on Christmas morning. 

“Finally!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “It took you two long enough.”

The look Keith gave her would have been enough to stop even the most fearless person on Earth in their tracks. But Keith was pretty sure Pidge was an alien, and the fact that she barreled on only drove the point home. 

“I’ve been waiting for _ages_ , you know. Hunk and I both have, and it was driving me so crazy I almost told you anyway--”

“You did anyway,” Keith deadpanned. 

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but that wasn't on _purpose_. It was an accident.”

Searching through the kitchen, Keith set two bowls down on the table, a box of granola cereal, and a container of generic Greek yogurt. He liked the branded ones more, but his employee discount at work only applied to the generic store ones, so he was a little limited.

Pidge joined him at the counter, pulling out a carton of milk and helping herself to the cereal. It was a normal routine at this point, and Pidge was still rambling throughout it all while Keith filled the other bowl with yogurt and added a handful of the granola. 

“...seriously though, do you have any idea how difficult it was just to wait? Just sitting there and watching you two. But now it's all good, right? Because you got your fish boyfriend and Hunk and I don't have to act like we're completely unaware.”

Her last sentence made Keith choke on his yogurt.

“H-he isn't my--”

“He wasn't before,” Pidge said. “But judging by how red your face is, he definitely is now.”

Setting the bowl down Keith decided that he, unfortunately, was not going to be able to finish his breakfast. He left it next to the sink instead. 

“I-I don't know. It just feels… weird to call him that. He's Lance. Just Lance.”

Except he wasn't _just_ Lance. He was so much more. And yet…

Why was it so hard to put it into words?

Pidge was staring at Keith he entire time he tried to sort his thoughts out, watching his expressions carefully.

“Holy quiznak,” she said at last. “You're in love with him. Like, seriously in love with him.”

Keith couldn't think of anything to say.

_Because it's true, and you know it._

When Keith glances up at Pidge again, she had a bright, triumphant smile on her face. 

“I knew it!” she exclaimed. Keith groaned and hid his face in his hands.

“Do you have any idea how often we're going to tease you about it now?” Pidge continued. “You better prepare yourself, sulky boy, because you're never going to hear the end of it.”

Keith didn't bother to protest or argue against it; he knew the truth when it was staring him in the face.

“Is that why you're here?” Keith asked. “To tease me about it? I would have thought that you had better things to do.”

Pidge laughed. “Better things than teasing you? As if.”

Keith gave her a look. 

“I guess I came to congratulate you too,” she admitted eventually. “I don't think any of us ever thought you'd actually end up in a relationship.”

“Your faith in me is astounding.” 

Pidge waved the comment away. “I’m not done! Anyway, I just hope that it all goes well for you. And that you have lots of little freaky fish babies--”

Keith pushed Pidge towards the door and locked her out, but he could still her cackling from the other side. 

\----

The knife was almost as good at cutting through things as Lance’s own claws and teeth. Almost.

Stretched out on his sunning rock, Lance pulled the blade out of the handle again and got to work slicing seaweed into tiny strips, like he always did. Clouds were coming in, but for now it was still sunny and he wanted to enjoy it for as long as he could. 

Lance hummed to himself and admired the way the knife’s handle shone in the light. 

It was a sweet gesture. Lance wasn't quite sure what he would do with the knife, but he appreciated the gift all the same. What was it that humans said? “It's the thought that counts.”

But thoughts can't count. Thoughts don't have bodies, or brains; they're just thoughts. 

Humans had such strange expressions. 

Keith said he would be back today, but never specified exactly _when._ And that meant Lance, unlucky as he was, would have the hang around all day. The problem wasn't Keith visiting, of course. That was never the problem; but the issue was Lance would have to wait.

Waiting never came easy. He could do it when he had to; but he never liked it one bit. Especially when Lance had no idea when he would be visiting. What if he had things to do? Shellfish to dig up, or, more importantly, a gift to find?

A gift that was more important than ever, especially now, with them both (finally) understanding and on the same current. This was where they actually started to hold _meanings._

Something like that could only be found after hours of searching. Sand dollars and sea shells were lovely, but they were abundant. The sea glass had been a better find, and a lucky one. He didn't come across them often, and it was definitely a step in the right direction. 

But all he found after searching all night were bits of driftwood and broken pieces of crab shells. 

Well… Soreiee could wait for a little while, right? If Lance could, then so could he. Besides, there was always the chance that he wouldn't even show up while Lance was out looking.

A little adventure it was, then. Lance was always up for those.

His mind was made up.

Taking one last look up and down the beach, just to make sure there wasn't that familiar sight of red anywhere, Lance dragged himself back to the water. He just hoped Keith could be a little more patient than he was.

The water was freshly cold, as always. It still took his breath away. Even after the years he spent here, Lance doubted he would ever get used to anything than the warm waters from home. But he recovered quickly, swished his tail, and took off.

There wasn't much to see under the water; seaweed floated, having drifted off from miles away, and here and there were bits of human garbage that always ended up in the ocean. He avoided both of those with ease, not quite having an appetite for more seaweed at the moment. There were other important things to do; Lance needed to focus.

But what was there? The sea glass was going to be a tough one to beat; and while Lance was starting to get a grip on human customs, strange as they were, he still had quite a while to go before he really had it down. Keith seemed to be doing pretty well, though.

Lance wished he had human clothing. It would be nice to be able to carry that knife around, but alas, he often needed both hands. 

Reaching up, he absently fiddled with the glowy bead around his neck. He could have that with him always, at least.

Caught in his thoughts, Lance let himself lose track of time a little. By the time he came back, rooting through the sand for anything that caught his eye, he was beginning to think of just giving up. 

_There’s nothing here,_ he thought. Shells might have been fine before. But now…?

Personal. Lance needed something personal. That was the deal now that the courting… relationship had been established. And now that Keith actually _knew_ what to expect, it made things _so much more stressful._

Lance couldn't just go back empty-handed. But if he couldn't find anything…

Digging frantically through the seabed, it was difficult for Lance to notice anything that was around him with his entire attention focused as fine as a grain of sand. He didn't hear the voice in the distance, or pick up the scent of something that even a guppy would recognize as _danger._

In fact, he didn't realize it until it almost bit him in half.

Back home, sharks were seen all the time. But they were never really a threat. Lance’s kind was too bony, and apparently didn't taste well. It had been ages since Lance had spotted one last, even though he knew they were everywhere. 

This one was different. 

As Lance yelped and threw his hands up, desperate to keep himself in one piece, he was barely had time o register the fact that this shark was skinny; unnaturally so. Malnutrition. The poor thing was starving, and desperate creatures would do anything if they needed to for a meal.

Struggling to keep the rows of sharp teeth away from his skin, Lance flailed and tried to get away. But it wasn't much use; either he could try to outswim it and most likely end up failing, or he could try to fight it off… but with what?

Lance desperately wished for the knife a second time.

The faint voice he couldn't hear at first called again, but now Lance was able to pick up on it. And then there was a flash of color and something glinting in the sun. Lance dared himself to look away for a second to see what it was, and that was his first mistake.

The shark was a thresher, Lance noticed when it's incredibly long tail whipped around, and the thing struck him right across the side. 

Lance let go; not on purpose, of course, but a burning slash of pain blossomed where the tail made contact with his skin. Lance instinctively brought his hand over it, trying to cover as much of it as he could, as if that would make the pain go away.

Then the shark was out of his sight, and there was something in its place instead, and it was yelling angrily while fending the hungry (and angry) fish off.

“ _Get out of here, you horrid thing,_ ” the voice was saying furiously and--to Lance’s surprise--in the familiar singing language of the merfolk. 

All Lance could was stare and keep his hand against his side, gaping like a fish. The merperson… no, mermaid, Lance realized, slashed out at the thresher with one hand gripping a bit of human glass, the bottom half wrapped in cloth like a crude handle. It caught the thresher’s side, a cloud of blood filling the water, and the mermaid ducked just in time to avoid getting hit with its tail herself.

Another strike, at the underbelly this time, and more infuriated merish phrases, and the thresher understood; it would not find a meal here. 

The mysterious blue mermaid waited for a while, watching the shark retreat into deeper waters lest the blood attract anything else. It wasn't until she was sure it wouldn't make a second attempt that she turned around, and gripped Lance by his shoulders to shake him. This wasn't a good idea, as his side still hurt and the sound that slipped past his lips resembled a seagull more than anything. 

“Oh, you stupid guppy! You have us spending _seasons_ looking for you, with all of us worried sick, only for you to end up in the belly of a shark!”

The mermaid threw her arms around him then, and hugged him tightly. Her hair was a cloud of dark brown that the waters tangled and made absolutely unruly. She was warm, and across her shoulders were a scattering of freckles that looked like stars. A tail not even a shade darker than his own wrapped around him in a single, bone-crushing loop.

Lance tried to squirm his way out of the stranger's grip before something in his mind clicked, and he could have called himself an idiot for taking so long to realize it. 

...Hair the same color as his and a tail to match. The mermaid wasn't a stranger at all. 

It was impossible.

But it was happening all the same. Keith was going to have to wait for just a little while longer. 

“M-Maurea?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently "tiger maurea" is a type of sea snail. I had to do lots of hunting for an ocean-y name that would work. 
> 
> (I'm really bad at naming characters.)


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maurea isn't very happy.

Keith paced along the beach anxiously, backpack slung over one shoulder. 

Now that he thought about it, he never actually told Lance what time he would meet him. But then again, Keith never did. Mostly because time-telling was a little different for merpeople than humans. Which makes sense, when Keith supposed.

_“You know… like, hours?” was what Keith asked once._

_“... ‘Ours?’” Lance echoed in confusion._

_“No._ Hours. _Like… how you tell time? Midnight? Noon? Six o’clock?”_

_That made Lance laugh. “Your kind is strange,” he said with a hint affection. “You attach words and numbers to everything. You make time human. We tell time based on the position of the sun.”_

It was understandable, considering it wasn't like Lance would just swim around with a watch on his wrist. Even if that was an amusing thought. 

But still; it made things a little difficult. Keith estimated the time he would meet Lance, telling him “Before the day is half over” or “After the day is half over” so the merman would at least have some vague idea of when to come to the shore. But Keith didn't think he remembered to do that last time.

With a quiet sigh, Keith plopped down on a beached log of driftwood and scribbled in the sand idly with a stick. It wasn't like he had anything to do today, at least; but he never had to wait this long before. The wind blew and whipped his hair around, bringing storm clouds with it that were approaching from the horizon. He eyed them warily and tugged the red beanie he wore down a little more to keep the wind off. 

It was getting cold, and soon it was going to get worse. When he checked the weather on his phone last night there wasn't any mention of rain or a storm, but weather was often like that, particularly here. 

Keith just didn't want to be on the beach when the storm hit. And he didn't want Lance to be, either. The waters were rough and dangerous and relentless, and when they were at their worst they reached almost to the houses along the sand on the other side of the tide pools. If Lance was caught up in the storm there was a chance of him being seen, or hurt, or swept away… there were countless possibilities, and none of them were ones that he liked. 

Keith just hoped Lance made it before the ominous gray clouds got there. Then they could exchange gifts, as usual, and he would know that Lance would be able to wait the storm out somewhere safe.

But it had been over an hour, and there was no sign of him. 

At all.

No brown hair popping up from the surface of the water, or a shine of blue scales and bioluminescent glow, or his laugh, or the sound of Keith’s name spoken from excitedly from smiling lips--

Oh, god. That was horribly, disgustingly romantic. Keith blushed a deep red and was thankful (just for a split second) that he was the only one on the beach. 

_Where was Lance?_ Keith wouldn't be so anxious if he could just see him.

His patience, as thin as it was, was rewarded soon enough. 

In the ocean, too far for Keith to possibly even think of reaching on his own (he never was the best swimmer) something broke the surface of the water. The distance made it look like it was only one something, at least. Keith never would have noticed it if he hadn't been scanning to waves like a sentry for any sign of Lance.

Even from that far off, the sight of brown hair was unmistakable.

Keith stood, not bothering to hide his relief, and walked down to where the water met the sand stepped over the lines of seafoam and stranded kelp. 

“Lance!” He yelled as best he could over the wind and the sea, and waved his hands to draw attention to himself. The figure in the distance continued on a straight path for the beach, and when it got a little closer Keith froze.

That wasn't Lance in the water.

At least, it wasn't _just_ Lance. He recognized the hair and the suntanned skin, and the delicate, blue ear fin… things well enough. But there was another, almost identical next to him. At least, they looked identical from the distance. The only think Keith could see was that Lance’s doppelgänger had longer hair. 

His efforts to catch Lance’s eye worked; the merman looked right at him, and lifted one hand out of the water to wave back. While Keith watched, the other seemed to catch sight of him too.

And their reaction wasn't a good one.

The duo froze in their advance, and then Lance’s copy took off, heading in another direction, dragging Lance behind as they swam parallel to the beach. 

Keith took a step, watching in confusion. Where were they going? And where did the other one come from? What were they doing here?

Where were they taking Lance?

Stuck on the beach, Keith had no choice but to follow along the best he could on land and could only hope that the newcomer’s plan was to stop somewhere on the shore. Sand kicked up where his feet dig into the ground, and the wind fought him with every step, but he ran along anyway. He wasn't about to let Lance out of his sight.

The stranger lead Lance past his cave, to a part of the beach Keith never really explored. He never liked it much; there were simply too many huge, looming rocks and the water was higher. There wasn't enough dry land, and the one (and only) time he went over to check it out, he ended up soaked. The waves were more unpredictable, and nature simply decided that it wasn't a place meant for humans.

...But for a species like Lance? It would have been perfect.

Accepting the fact that Keith wouldn't make it out of this dry, and remembering he was actually a little smart this time and put his phone in a ziplock bag before leaving the house, he took a deep breath and clambered over the rocks scattered along the open mouth of the cave.

The water reached his knees and that was when a wave _wasn't_ breaking on the shore. A second later that very thing happened, and he sucked in a breath when the ice-cold ocean rose a bit more and dropped back down again.

He almost considered going back when he saw the unknown merperson (mermaid, maybe?) hiding itself behind one of the tall rocks with Lance in tow.

Keith shouldered on, willing himself not to be knocked down by the waves. And slowly, but surely, as they always say, he followed.

Or at least, he tried to. As soon as Keith reached the rock, the mysterious merperson lunged for him; they must have known he was, quite literally, on their tail, and stopped to surprise him.

It worked.

Keith stepped back in surprise and to avoid getting cut by the merperson’s claws, but that also meant he ended up completely in the water.

The merperson ( _Yup, definitely mermaid,_ Keith thought) didn't waste any time and shrieked in an unearthly tone that was unlike anything he had ever heard. She aimed for his eyes, and floundering in the water like he was, Keith knew he was doomed.

Then Lance was there in a second, somehow wedging himself between Keith and his attacker. One arm flew up and caught the mermaid’s wrist, and the other grabbed her shoulder. 

Now that they were up close, Keith could clearly see the striking resemblance between them. He hadn't imagined it. They had the same eyes, the pointed chin and the nose. Even their hair was almost identical, though hers was longer. The only main difference was their skin; also the same shade, though the stranger's shoulders were covered with a scattering of freckles. They dusted her cheeks as well, if Keith was able to look close enough.

Which he was, now that Lance was there to keep her off of him. 

Lance kept his grip on the mermaid and was speaking to her in his own watery, native tongue. Notes of song and clicks not unlike a dolphin’s reached Keith’s ears, and the mermaid glowered at Lance before responding with singing of her own.

It was beautiful; Keith couldn't deny that, even though he didn't understand a single thing they were saying. There was something enchanting to it that was difficult to place. He remembered reading _Odyssey_ in his freshman year of high school, and the sirens that tried to sing the sailors and Odysseus to their deaths. Suddenly it wasn't as improbable as it seemed when he read the story. 

It felt like forever, but eventually the mermaid relaxed. Lance refused to let go until she hissed a couple notes venomously through clenched, dangerously sharp teeth. 

Lance finally turned to face Keith then.

“I am sorry,” he said in English, and Keith could hear sincerity in his words. “For what she tried to do to you.”

Keith sputtered. “I-I don't--”

Lance placed one hand under his chin, lifting Keith’s head to look him over. “She did not hurt you, did she?”

“...No,” Keith answered. “...Lance, what's going on?”

With a quiet sigh, Lance glanced behind him to look at the mermaid who sat still. Her eyes were watching them like a hawk--no, Keith realized. They were watching _him_ like a hawk. Trained on Keith like she was ready to pounce again at a moment's notice. 

Keith tried not to move, but it was difficult as the water was practically at his neck with him on the ground.

Lance looked to him again.

“My family,” he started. “They have been looking for me. And they have found me.” Lance wasn't able to keep the smile off his face. It was bright and joyful, and almost out of place given what happened only moments ago.

“This is my sister. One of them. Her name is Maurea.”

\----

At the sound of her name spoken in Keith’s human language, Maurea spat in disgust.

 _“What are you doing?”_ she hissed. _“Lance, leave the human alone! It's dangerous!”_

 _“He isn't,”_ Lance insisted in merfolk. _”His name is Keith, Maurea. I trust him with my life.”_

“...Lance?” Keith questioned. “She's your… sister?”

The merman turned to him again. “Yes,” he said. “She is part of my family.”

Keith stared at Maurea, and Lance could see the hint of nervousness in his expression. Humans never were very good at masking emotions; the scent of fear was practically pouring from him and Lance had little doubt that anything with a sense of smell could detect it from miles away.

“She will not hurt you,” Lance promised in English. “She has given her word.”

“Is that… is that what you were talking about? A second ago?”

_“Why are you speaking to it? How did you learn that language? You musn’t--”_

_“Maurea, hush,”_ Lance interrupted. _“His kind taught me their tongue. So I could speak with him. You have to listen to me.”_

_“I’ll do no such thing. I can't believe you--how have you survived so long on your own, if you spent all your time doing foolish things like this? You’ll come with me. Immediately. It's past time I was supposed to rendezvous with Mother and Father and the others.”_

_Mother and Father and the others._

The words caused a strange feeling to rise in Lance’s throat, like a lump that he couldn't quite swallow down. It had been a long time--a very long time--since he’d seen their smiling faces and heard their voices. Or been wrapped in their arms in an embrace. Since he heard his siblings’ teasing voices or chased them through the beds of seagrass and slept soundly, knowing that he was surrounded by the ones that he loved and they were _safe._

Lance wanted to go. Of course he did. It was what he wanted for years, more than anything, as he stashed away human objects that washed up on the beach in a desperate attempt to keep himself busy.

Keith made a sound, and then said, “...Lance? What is going on?”

Keith. How could he let it slip past his mind, even for an instant? Confusing, silly, beautiful Keith, who courted him without realizing and provided himself as Lance’s shoulder to cry on. 

His family would be infuriated if they knew how close he was with a human. Humans were dangerous. They polluted the waters, they took the fish his kind relied on. Lance was always closest to Maurea, out of all the rest of his family. And if this was how she responded to seeing Keith so close… 

Then they would surely tear him apart without hesitation or a second thought.

Lance was more grateful than ever that he knew Keith's language. It ensured a little safety; some small bubble of privacy that Maurea could not burst. She would have no idea what he was going to tell Keith now.

“Soriee,” Lance said. He hoped the use of the old nickname would catch his attention. “Go home. Stay on land. Do not return to the ocean for… for three days.”

“What?” Keith exclaimed. The sound startled Maurea and she muttered a threat.

Lance ignored her. 

“Yes,” he insisted. “The ocean is not safe right now. I must go, but I will back. In three days. Remember.”

He reached forward then, turning his back to Maurea completely and placed both of his hands on the sides of Keith’s face, and then rested his own forehead against his. Hopefully Keith would understand; Lance prayed to the ocean, to the stars, to anything that he could. 

_“Lance,”_ Maurea demanded. _“What are you doing?”_

Lance didn't respond, and he backed away. “Go now,” he told Keith. “But remember. Three days.”

Keith stared at Lance with a mix of disbelief and confusion, glanced warily at Maurea, and then he dragged his waterlogged self to his feet. Lance gripped his sister’s wrist so tightly she made a sound, but she didn't follow after his human as he turned around and left quickly as he could.

It wasn't until Keith was completely out of his sight that Lance faced her again.

 _“You have a lot of explaining to do,"_ she said dangerously. 

He did indeed. Lance gulped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I work seven days straight after this, so I decided to go ahead and get this done now because I won't be writing again until Thursday. 
> 
> Chapter 24 will be very interesting though! I already have plans for it.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea solves everything... sometimes.

Keith ran his hand through his hair, tugging on the strands agitatedly as though it would solve all of his problems.

It didn't.

“You're going to wear a hole in the carpet,” Shiro said, arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the doorway to the kitchen. “Calm down. Stop pacing.”

“ _I can't,_ ” Keith responded. “He said three days, Shiro. Like some sort of goddamn fairy tale. I can't wait that long. What if something happens?”

Pidge drew her arms inside of her green sweater, like a child, and curled up on the corner of Shiro’s couch. “You said this… mermaid was his sister, right? I doubt she would do anything to hurt him.”

Groaning, Keith tugged at the hair falling in his face again. “I don't think so either,” he admitted. “Not with the way he talked about them before. But… what if they take him away? What if they already _did_? They probably swim fast and it's already been a few hours, what if--”

This time it was Hunk who offered his input. He stepped around Shiro to press a mug of tea into Keith's hands. “Dude, you have to calm down. You're freaking out, and believe me, that's no fun.”

Keith wrapped his hands around the warm mug, but didn't drink from it. Instead he stared into the tea like some sort of witch, as if he could divine an answer from it. (He didn't, just like the hair-pulling earlier.) 

With a sigh, he lifted the mug to his lips and took a sip. It was the last thing he wanted; why should he be taking time for tea, or food, or _anything,_ when he should be figuring out what needed to happen next? But there was only so much he could do.

“To be honest?” Hunk went on. “I seriously doubt Lance is just gonna let them take him away like that. I mean, he cares about you, man. It's pretty obvious.”

Keith shook his head. “He’s been on his own for _years,_ ” he said. “I mean… what if he wants to go with them?”

“You don't want him to,” Shiro said. 

Of course Keith didn't. Why would he? After all this time…

Keith didn't let people in easily. That wasn't a secret, and the ones that he did meant the world to him. More than that. They were more important than the entire universe; not that it meant a whole lot, considering most of the universe was cold and empty. But still. 

It was selfish, and Keith knew it full well. He understood Lance’s loneliness, how much he wanted to be with his family again. More than anyone. Who was he to want anything for him other than that?

Selfish. 

And yet, even though Keith knew it, he still didn't want Lance to stay here, with them, with _him_ any less.

Keith realized they were all looking at him, still waiting for an answer.

“O-of course not,” he said, and he hated the way his voice cracked. 

Shiro sighed and he looked down for a moment, thinking. Keith and all the others watched him the entire time. He was the oldest. He always had a plan; Shiro would know what to do… right? 

Eventually he looked up again, and Keith listened as though his life depended on it.

“I know you don't like it,” Shiro said finally. “But… I don't see any other choices. There isn't anything we can do but listen to what Lance said and wait.”

“But Shiro--”

“It's the truth, and you know it,” Shiro insisted, firmly but gently. “If there was any other way… but there isn't. We just have to hope that Lance will be able to hold out on his end. I’m sorry. But I think--no, I know--that Lance wouldn't just vanish on you like that.”

Unable to meet his eyes, Keith stared into his tea again. _It was the truth._ Even though Keith wanted to argue with him about it.

Silence filled the room, and it was tense and uncomfortable. The type that none of them liked but weren't able to break. 

Pidge was the one who found her words first.

“You're still soaking wet,” she pointed out, her voice small. It was clear she was scrabbling for sentences, trying to think of anything to take their minds off the current situation. 

Keith glanced down; she was right. His clothes clung to him stubbornly, stained a shade darker from the salt water. 

“...Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”

Hunk laughed, and the sound should have been out of place. But with him it never was.

“You never change, do you?” Hunk asked. “I’ve given up hope by now.” 

Keith smiled despite himself, even though it was wan and brittle. The others took it as a good sign nonetheless, and Hunk patted his shoulder before he left to dig through Shiro’s closet to find a change of dry clothes.

“We’ll go to Allura’s after this,” Shiro decided. “She always had good advice.”

 

As soon as Allura saw the looks on all of their faces when they walked through the door, she locked the entrance behind them and shut the sign in the window off. Thankfully the place was empty, with the weather as bad as it was; the storm finally blew in, and it wasn't holding anything back. 

“We’ll talk in the kitchen,” she said, turning the lights to the dining area of the restaurant off. 

Coran looked up when they followed her through the set of swinging doors.

“Some milkshakes might do us all some good,” the British cook said when he saw them. “And some fries.” 

For once, neither of those sounded very appetizing. But Keith didn't object. 

Allura stood a little straighter, and took off the apron tied around the front of her dress. 

“What's wrong?” She asked, not bothering with any formalities. “I’ve never seen you all look so solemn. Except for…” she trailed off.

Shiro started to say something, but he paused and looked at the rest of the gang. “It's a… long story. But… it isn't really ours to tell.”

He locked eyes with Keith. 

Shiro was right, of course.

Keith took a deep breath, and shifted his weight to one foot before he spoke out. 

“It's mine,” he said. “I… I guess… How much do you know about mermaids?”

\----

Lance was greeted with tears, suffocating hugs, and exclamations of relief. 

“Oh, thank the gods,” a familiar voice said, and when Lance looked up he saw the face of his mother. Crying worked differently underwater than it did on land, of course; the tears beaded and then drifted away with the current, rather than drip down her face.

“We thought we lost you,” she continued saying, and held his face firmly in her hands as if Lance would vanish again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Lance cried too, of course; he reached up with one hand to wipe the tears away before remembering he didn't need to. He missed the feeling of their hugs more than he realized, and it wasn't something he ever wanted to go without for another day. 

“I’m sorry,” he echoed. “I’m so sorry, Mother. I don't know what happened--there was the storm and then… and then…”

“We looked everywhere for you,” Lance’s sister said. 

Cordelia was older than Lance by eight seasons, and Maurea by four; she had the same hair color that defined their family, though the rest of her features looked more like their father's. A green tail, reminiscent of sea glass, and eyes the same color. 

She was loud, as trouble-making as a dolphin, and currently sobbing like a guppy.

“You're never allowed to leave,” Cordelia continued. “Ever, ever again.”

“We searched all of the tropics,” Llyr explained. Lance’s older brother had a hand clasped on his shoulder, and seemed determined to never let go. “When we couldn't find you there we went up north.”

Lance still couldn't believe they were all there. It was something he dreamed about every night but had given up hope of ever actually seeing them with his own eyes again. 

And for a small moment, he was able to pretend that everything was alright and Keith wasn't waiting anxiously for him somewhere on land. 

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I-I won't leave you again, I never want to…”

Maurea had stayed quiet up until then. He could feel her eyes digging into the back of his neck like a human’s fish hook. 

“If you don't want to leave us again, then why are you spending all of your time with a human?”

Silence. 

The warm, happy feeling of a long-awaited reunion faded out like the receding tide. 

Lance gaped at his sister; how could she? It was an act of betrayal; they were closer than a snail and its shell. When Maurea swam off in the dead of night to study the bioluminescent algae along the top of the water seasons ago, he kept it a secret. When Lance begged her not to tell their family when his fin got snagged on a coral, she bandaged it up better than their mother ever could and didn't tell a soul--until Cordelia spotted the seaweed dressings the next morning. 

He couldn't believe that now, after all this time, after how long he spent alone in that cold, dark cave… 

Why couldn't he just have this one thing? 

“Lance,” his father admonished. 

The expressions on all their faces were very much the same; shock, disbelief, fear. Fear for him most likely, for themselves, and the safety the oceans provided for them. Safety that humans threatened. With the exception of Maura, who was just furious and looked like someone had stolen a flounder from her. But she already had time to adjust to everything.

“He’s been _courting_ one,” Maurea went on without hesitation. “We’ve been searching every ocean for him and he's trying to make a _human_ his mate. He speaks the human’s terrible, harsh language.”

His mother stared at him. “This can't be true,” she said. Pleaded. “Lance… what have you been doing?”

Lance couldn't lie to them; not when he still had Keith’s necklace resting against the hollow of his throat, when he still had the scent of his human on his hands where he touched Keith’s face.

“It isn't what you think,” he said, though it was exactly that. “Please. Mother, Keith isn't--”

“You know what we taught you,” his father interrupted. “They're dangerous. They'll take you away…”

An angry snarl worked its way past Lance’s clenched teeth. The slightest _hint_ of a suggestion that Keith was anything less than a heart of gold was enough for him to forget his wishes for a happy reunion. Maurea had questioned his choices long enough; he didn't want the others to look at him the same way.

“The storm already took me away. It took me here. To a cave and a tiny human settlement called a _city._ I’ve been watching them all this time alone… Waiting for you... and watching them. They're loud, and I don't understand them most of the time. But the friends I’ve made--they're _good._ They taught me English and told me about their world and Keith was here when you were still leagues away.”

There was more that Lance wanted to say--there was always more, it felt like, but words were failing him and he couldn't form the right ones in his mouth. 

“Oh, my poor boy,” his mother said, and then he was being suffocated in another hug.

He tried to wriggle his way free; why weren't they _listening_? Didn't they hear a thing he just said?

“You don't understand,” he cried. “They didn't steal me away or keep me prisoner. These humans are good and kind. The stories that you told us--”

“Are obviously ones that you forgot,” Maurea interrupted.

“Are _wrong,_ ” Lance insisted. “They've never done anything to hurt me and _you're not listening._ ”

Lance’s family all shared the same look of guilt; they were trying to ignore his words, overlook them and act like he didn't know what he was doing. Lance was the youngest of them. He never grew up in their eyes, not really, and it was only confirmed further when Maurea spoke again.

“You expect us to believe you? You played with sharks when you were a guppy, how--”

Lance let out a hiss of frustration, gnashing his teeth. “I’m old enough know what I’m doing,” he insisted. “I’ve been on my own for this long and I’m still alive, aren't I? You’re so afraid… you're so afraid of what you don't understand and you're not listening! I know more than you. I’ve spent time with them and learned about them and Keith… means so much to me. I’m sorry that it took you so long to find me… I really am. But I won't leave him. Or them. Any of them.”

The youngest merman sifted his tail through the sand a little and waited for them to say something. 

“You’ve been on your own for too long,” his father said finally. “But we’re here now. You have us again and we’ll all travel together…”

His father continued talking, but Lance let his attention drift. His family decided; it was final. No matter what he did or how he pleaded. His efforts were futile. It felt like something was blocking his airway and making him suffocate. 

“Y-you can't just… I can't…” Lance searched for the right things to say. “I _care_ about them. I can't just leave my friends behind. I can't leave Keith.”

And that was the truth of things. Lance couldn't, much in the same way that he couldn't grow human legs and run on land. It just wasn't possible.

“You don't even know anything about them. You're too afraid.”

There it was again; fear. His family was frightened by the enigma known as the human species and it kept them blind. When he called them out on the truth like he did only moments before, his family tensed and glanced at each other. Something unspoken was discussed in those looks and Lance didn't know what it was.

“Sea gods,” Cordelia cursed finally, though it was spoken more as a defeated resignation than anything else. “You're really wrapped up in this fish-brained human, aren't you?”

Lance didn't answer; he knew he didn't need to. Even though Keith was anything but fish-brained. 

“We just want you with us again,” his mother said, and Lance's will wavered--but only slightly. “We love you; we don't want you heartbroken.”

Lance listened intently but didn't dare to hope. 

“We must leave eventually,” she went on to say. “You know that. We’re a migratory kind. Aren't your fins itching for warmer waters and new shores?”

They were; of course they were. Lance had been dying to travel since he first found himself in this freezing place, but without any way of learning where he was, he decided it would have been safer to find refuge in the cave. And there he stayed.

“...Maybe,” was all that he said in response. He didn't want to show any sign of weakness. They would lunge at it like a shark.

“We have to leave eventually,” his mother repeated, more to herself than anything. “But… we’ve found you now. I suppose--I suppose there's no harm in staying for a little while.”

Lance couldn't help himself from breathing a sigh of relief. It wasn't a final solution; it was a small battle, but it was won nonetheless. He hoped that it would give him enough time to figure out something permanent. But he would have to do a lot of thinking for the next step. Crying and angry words weren't going to get him there, at least not all the way.

But for the time being, he had his family again, and warm hugs and laughter and the overwhelming feeling of love and acceptance. For the next three days that could be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just survived working for a week straight so to celebrate I'm posting chapter 24 :D


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura's gonna finally get something sparkly and Kolivan owns a grocery store.

When his manager saw him dropping an armful of cereal boxes for the third time that day, he told Keith to go home.

It wasn't in the middle of the store, of course; Keith was on his first break when Kolivan pulled him aside. 

“Are you feeling alright?” the man asked, peering into Keith's eyes like he could see into his very soul. He tended to do that a lot. On normal days it freaked him out, but now Keith just stared right back. 

He was too tired to really care. 

“M’fine,” Keith said, obviously lying. He never liked telling the truth when it came to his emotions, but he was never much good at doing the opposite either. 

Kolivan, naturally, could see right through it. 

“You’ve been walking around like a zombie since yesterday,” he began. “Something is bothering you.”

Like many others, when his father was gone Kolivan tried his best to fill the role of a “dependable adult.” It was why he hired him despite his less-than-desirable resume, or why he kept him employed when he had issues with ignorant customers. In small towns where everyone knows everyone else, there's a lot more you can get away with; especially when Kolivan owned the store.

It was also why Keith was able to roll his eyes, say, “I don't really think it's any of your business,” and know he would still be able to show up for his next shift without worry. 

As it was, Kolivan sighed and ran a hand over his face like a tired parent. 

“Go home, Keith,” his boss said. “There's something you're clearly upset over and you restocking the shelves isn't going to make it any better. We’ll give Ulaz a call and see if he doesn't mind taking over your shift. It isn't going to be the end of the world.”

Keith wanted to argue; he really did. He needed the pay, definitely, and if Ulaz had to give up a day he was off to cover Keith because he couldn't pull himself together and be mature, he would feel guilty about it. 

But at the same time, focusing was proving to be a difficult task. Especially when he was worrying about the welfare of his merman… boyfriend.

“...Fine,” Keith responded eventually, more than a sigh of resignation than a frustrated groan. 

Kolivan put a hand on his shoulder. “Go home now, Antok and Thace can cover you if nothing else.”

He left, pushing open the door to the employee entrance and wishing that people would just start taking him _seriously_ while at the same time being thankful that he had one less thing to worry about. Now he could focus more on Lance. 

Well, if Keith wanted to try and find a positive side of all of this, it meant he would have more time to find Lance another gift. 

...But it was proving nearly impossible to find anything when all he could do was worry. 

Worry was exhausting. It gnawed at his entire being like a starving animal, draining all the energy he had left. And that wasn't a lot to begin with. 

He started walking down the sidewalk like he had done so many times before, his apron tucked away in his bag and out of sight. The usual souvenir shops lined the streets, familiar murals covering their walls and glass floats suspended from nets in the windows. 

Keith had seen it all a thousand times, probably even more than that. And at that moment he didn't think want to look at them ever again. It was hard to focus on things that were so painfully _normal_ when he still had another day before he went back down to the tide pools. 

A yawn slipped past his lips, and when he reached up one gloved hand to wipe the tired tears away that formed in his eyes something (or rather someone) ran right into him.

“Excuse me, I--oh! Keith!”

The Keith in question looked up to see Allura staring back at him. She looked surprised, clearly not expecting to see him (or anyone she knew, probably) out and about. 

“Allura,” Keith responded. 

The restaurant owner blinked and shook herself head a little like she was gathering her thoughts. 

“I didn't think I would see you…” 

Out doing things like a normal person? Keith wasn't too surprised by her reaction. He forced a smile. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Got off work early. I was gonna look for a gift…”

He trailed off, but Allura understood. Her expression softened from surprise to pity and Keith was sure he preferred the first. It was the same look she gave him after he finished telling his story in the kitchen the other day; pity, a desire to help while at the same time not knowing how. 

But her advise that night had been more of a mirror of Shiro’s than anything else.

_“I...I don't know what to think,” Allura had admitted that night. “This is all… it's just--”_

_“Unbelievable?” Pidge offered._

_“Yes, that,” she answered. “The stories they tell you when you're a child… it's hard to believe they were real.”_

_Coran chose that moment to set the milkshakes on the counter, and the sound made all of them jump. “I can't say I'm terribly surprised. We hardly know anything about the ocean. This is all very exciting though--but not the current situation, of course!” he added, casting a glance in Keith's direction._

_“I just don't know what to do,” Keith huffed. “I can't stand just sitting around like this.”_

_Allura looked at him closely before she spoke careful, precise words. “Lance sounds like he trusts you completely… don't you think you should try putting some faith in him, too?”_

_It wasn't what he wanted to hear, especially with the way their conversation ended earlier at Shiro’s. But as much as he disliked it, both Shiro and Allura were much more sensible than he was. If they were going to tell him the same thing he should probably listen._

_After Keith mumbled some unintelligible form of an agreement, Pidge leaned over to unlock her phone and show Allura and Coran the photos she'd taken of Lance._

Now, out in the street, Allura smiled and swept a curled lock of silver hair over her shoulder. “I was going to do a little bit of shopping. Do you want to come with me? Maybe we can find him something sparkly. I know I love those.”

Keith made a sound of amusement that he couldn't hold back, and Allura held out her hand. “Come on,” she said cheerfully, and Keith followed her into the nearest store.

\----

“Llyr, I _promise_ it's not so bad,” Lance said as he swished his tail through the water. 

His older brother grumbled behind him. Lance couldn't really hear what he said, but he thought Llyr’s comment had something to do with a “brainless jellyfish.” Which didn't make any sense; _all_ jellyfish were brainless, right?

“Here it is!”

The tide was just beginning with it being early morning still. Lance's little beach was empty, as usual. It was only a day since he was home last (when did Lance start thinking of the cave as _home_?) but it felt like it had been forever. 

Lance made his way into the cave. Llyr followed behind him.

“It's dark,” he said. “And… sea gods, it's freezing. You stayed here?”

Was it really that cold? Maybe Lance noticed when he first got there, so long ago. But now it was just… normal.

“Sorry,” Lance replied, and he swam a little further into the cave until he found his hiding place. “We’ll be out of here in just a tick.”

“Quicker than that would be preferable,” Llyr grumbled, but he didn't say anything else and settled for playing with a smoothed rock resting along the cave floor.

Left to his own thoughts, Lance was free to gather all of his human things. He asked Maurea if he could borrow her bag, and Llyr asked to tag along before he left. To “check the place out.”

(Lance knew Llyr wanted to make sure he didn't go off to find any humans--or one human in particular, at least. But he kept his mouth shut.)

Packing his things wasn't something Lance wanted to do; it felt wrong to move them from his cave, where they belonged. Like it made all of this more permanent. But…

Well, Lance figured, this was probably the easiest way to get his family introduced to humans as possible. “Baby steps,” Hunk had said once. It was a human expression he never thought he would have to use. 

“Okay, I’m ready,” Lance said finally, tucking his knife and crystal fish in the bag as gingerly as he could; those and the rest Keith's gifts meant the ocean to him. Including the useless “Rubix Cube” that he never really understood.

There was a quiet _swish_ of water as Llyr swam over to meet him, rock forgotten, and peered into the bag. Lance pulled it away before he could get a proper look. 

“Do you really need all of this?” Llyr asked.

Lance closed the bag for safe keeping and slung it over his shoulder. “I wouldn't have come back for it if I didn't,” he said. 

And Lance _did_ need it all. The plan he came up with last night was this: acclimation. It was obvious that his family was still terrified of Keith and the others (although only Maurea knew about Keith, and she clearly wasn't scared. Just annoyingly angry.) Pidge told him about “acclimation.” It was a science term, and though he didn't understand it as well as Pidge did because she knew everything, he knew enough. 

After he showed them his human things (except for the knife; he would probably hide that one somewhere) Lance planned to tell them what he learned, what Pidge taught him, and about he and Keith ended up courting. Well, probably not _everything_ about Keith, because not all of it was any of their business; just enough for them to understand. Slowly at first, a little at a time. Too much information would scare them away, and they would close themselves off like a clam. Patience was key. 

Eventually when they were less afraid, he wanted to take them to the shore to meet Keith face-to-face. 

With Llyr apparently done with the place, he was more than eager to leave the cave. Lance followed him out, bag held carefully against his side. His brother swam ahead of him, looking back over his shoulder every once in awhile. Lance guessed it was to make sure he was still behind him and didn't try to take off.

“Why do you need them so much?” Llyr asked eventually. “They’re just useless human things. Like that necklace? We can make you a much better--”

“No,” Lance cut him off firmly. “I want to keep this one. Keith gave it to me.”

“The glow will alert predators from leagues away.”

Lance scowled and cast him a dark look. “ _We_ glow too, you clam.”

Llyr chose to conveniently act like he couldn't hear what his little brother said. “I just don’t see the use of keeping them. They’re trash.”

With a swish of his tail, Lance swam ahead of him and didn’t dignify his remark with a response. He was always faster than his siblings when he wanted to be. Apparently they forgot, because Llyr made a sound of surprise and took off after him. It was a welcome distraction from his disapproval and Lance decided to have some fun, like he was a guppy again. 

Messing with his brother would never cease to be entertaining. And to be honest, Llyr probably deserved it. 

Lance took off, fighting against the current as hard as he could and leaving Llyr far behind. When he heard Llyr cursing and swimming after him, a game of chase had begun.

It had been years since Lance played any sort of game with his family, and honestly he was exhilarated to be able to again. He swerved and changed directions like it was nothing, taking unnecessary turns to throw Llyr off and leaving him far, far behind. Spending as much time as he did in one place gave Lance home field advantage; he knew where every rock was that needed to be avoided and where the currents were stronger. His brother didn't stand a chance. 

Caught up in the thrill of the game, Lance laughed and trilled; gods, he _missed_ this. Humans could have all the silly sports and ball games they wanted. This was countless times better. 

Lance won, of course, hardly out of breath by the time he made it back to where his family was waiting. Llyr followed a couple minutes later and they wrestled in the sand, and even though it meant Lance would have to scrub his tail clean later for the moment it was worth it. 

The bag sat off to the side, forgotten. 

Lance had time. He would get to it later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my Friday! So you guys get chapter 25 :D
> 
> Also, a note to myself: you need to calm down with the italics, my friend.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very cursed object makes its reappearance. Lance uses it to his full advantage.

Allura dragged him into the fifth store in a row. This was one that, surprisingly, Keith _hadn’t_ been in before. It was an antique shop, which was probably why. There was a significant portion of the stores in Altea that were antique shops, and Keith avoided them like the plague... or like a store that he really didn’t want to go in.

Why go to the beach if you only wanted to look at old things?

But Allura went through the door anyway, and Keith followed because he knew leaving her on her own without a word was usually considered “rude.”

The shop was probably as old as most of the things for sale. It had that worn, leaning appearance that looked like it was about to collapse in on itself at a moment’s notice. The floor was uneven and the carpet worn and almost nonexistent. It creaked with every step Keith took and set him on edge.

It shouldn't have been possible for there to be as many shelves as there were; the store was so full it was suffocating. Keith kept his arms at his sides because he was sure he would knock something over and shatter it.

Somewhere off to the side was the sound of someone clearing their throat. Keith looked for the source and found it to be the store owner behind the checkout counter, which was really just an old glass case. He pointed to a sign taped to the case: _LEAVE ALL LARGE BAGS AT THE COUNTER PLEASE._

Apparently this place was stolen from enough for it to be an issue. Why anyone would want to steal old junk was beyond him, but Keith handed his backpack over anyway. He was given a playing card with a joker on one side as some sort of substitute for an identification when he would go to retrieve it later. 

Allura was already nowhere to be seen, lost somewhere in the maze of old shelves and dusty things. Keith took a deep breath and started to search.

The building was bigger than it seemed; sections were walled off, divided by different types of merchandise. One tiny room was old books. Another was terrifying dolls that would surely haunt Keith’s dreams for the rest of his life. Antique glass floats and those dead starfish mounted on frames…

After what was certainly an eternity and a half, Keith finally found Allura in the very back of the store. He was pretty sure they were the only customers in, as he had yet to see anyone else. The silence was still unsettling, and he could easily have called out to find her. But Keith didn’t like loud noises very much. He preferred to do things quietly if he could.

When he finally got close enough to see what had caught his shopping companion's eye, Allura was… 

...looking at jewelry. 

This wasn't a surprise, as she never hid her love for glittering things. (And had specifically said she was looking for something sparkly earlier.) Allura reminded Keith of some sort of magpie out of a fairy tale. Only a lot prettier than a bird, and with long hair instead of feathers. 

...Did magpies even collect shiny things? Or was that just a myth?

“Find anything?” Keith asked. 

Allura didn’t startle or jump; she probably heard him approaching from yards away with the floor creaking like it was.

“Maybe,” she said. “Come look at this!”

Keith walked over the join her, crouching down to see what she was pointing at in the display case. There was a number of various things she could have been gesturing too, but Keith narrowed it down to a necklace resting on black velvet.

The chain wasn't much of a chain; rather, it was more of a cord. Dark brown and tied in a series of knots. Every once in awhile the cord was decorated by polished, gleaming beads of tiger’s eye. (Keith only knew what it was because Hunk had taken to visiting Balmera’s recently to see Shay, and was always returning with more knowledge on rocks than anyone ever needed.) 

At the center of the necklace was an… anomite? No. That wasn't even a word, was it? Keith frowned and try to remember. An… am… ammonite.

Yes. _Ammonite._ One of those weird fossils in a swirl, the kinds that were like those funny Nautilus animals that float around in a shell and swims backwards. 

How Keith knew the word _Nautilus_ and not _ammonite_ was beyond him. Maybe Lance talked about them once.

Either way, the necklace was certainly eye-catching. Not in the usual flashy way, and a little out of place in an antique shop. But the jewelry was undeniably pretty in more of an... earthy sense. It was probably the shades of brown that did it. It looked more _natural,_ instead of the typical shining shades of gold and silver most necklaces had. In fact, the only thing shining other than the tiger’s eye and the polished ammonite was the gold binding the fossil. And there was hardly any of that.

“I like it,” Keith said after giving it his amateur appraisal.

Allura smiled. “I thought you would,” she replied. 

She ran off (or quickly walked off, more like. Allura was afraid to knock anything over on accident too, and probably doubted how stable the displays were.)

Keith bought the necklace for a price lower than he was expecting, which was a pleasant surprise. He stored it carefully in his backpack while Allura paid for something she found for herself; sparkly, of course. A necklace of her own with aquamarine and silver and probably cost more than Keith really wanted to think about. But he wasn't to judge; at least she wasn't shopping for a merperson. 

_I’ve been bringing him a lot of jewelry lately,_ Keith thought as they walked out the door. Should he start looking for something else? Something more creative?

But Lance seemed to be thrilled with the accessories; apparently merfolk had their own, but it was mostly made out of whatever they could find in the ocean, which usually didn't include cut, shining gemstones. And the merman had yet to take off any of the jewelry Keith had given him. 

One necklace couldn’t hurt. 

“Thanks for coming with me today,” Keith said awkwardly as they walked down the street.

Allura rested her hand briefly on his shoulder. “Anytime,” she told him. “I think he’ll like it.”

What it sounded like she said was, "He will like it." Keith wanted to believe her; she was rarely wrong about these sort of things. 

“I hope so,” Keith agreed. “After _three entire days_ I want it to be a good gift.”

She laughed and tied her hair back into a ponytail. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wait so long for anything. You really like this bo-- merman, don’t you?”

Keith considered denying it, but there was no use in lying. Everyone had been watching him pace around like an anxious cat for days, worrying over whether Lance would show up again when he obviously would. (But would he? Keith was just one human and Lance had missed his family for so long, what if--)

“I do,” Keith admitted, pulling himself back from his thoughts. No use mentally running through what he’d already been mulling over for three days now. 

“Tomorrow is almost here,” Allura assured him. “You’ll see him then.”

It made Keith smile. “Yeah,” he said. 

He would. 

\----

“This is a rock. Or technically _crystal,_ I guess. Humans have different words for them.”

“It’s not a rock. It’s a fish.” 

Lance shook his head and held the carving closer to Maurea’s eyes so she could see it better. 

“It’s a fish _carved_ out of crystal,” he said. “So it’s really a crystal.”

“Looks like a fish,” Maurea argued.

“It’s supposed to! But it’s really--”

Off to the side, Llyr spoke up and interrupted the beginning of their argument. “What is this?” 

Lance’s brother was holding his hand out, palm up, the knife there for all his family to see. They were sitting on a rock together that rose up out of the water, and the sunlight made the handle shine. 

He reached out quickly to take it back before Llyr opened it on accident and could cut himself--not that Lance really thought he would, but it was a human thing, and unfamiliar to them. Considering Maurea was still confused by the idea that humans carved rocks (er, crystals) into shapes for fun, he decided being too careful wasn’t a bad idea.

“It’s a knife,” Lance explained.

His father frowned. “A knife?” he echoed. 

Lance nodded. “Yeah. You know. A tool. Keith gave it to me. To cut things. Humans have really dull teeth and claws--I mean, nails. So they use knives instead.”

His family listened with interest, and Lance would be lying if it didn’t make him feel a little good about himself. He knew they purposefully kept themselves in the dark about humans out of fear, but did they really know _that_ little? 

Well. If Lance was going to have to step it up a bit on the whole human expert thing, then so be it. 

Huh. “Step it up.” That was another human term, wasn’t it? Funny how often he was using those lately. Pidge probably taught him that, too. Or Hunk.

While Lance was distracted, his family was still looking over the knife. 

“So… it’s like a weapon?” His mother asked. 

But the words, despite how easily as they were spoken, told volumes. Lance picked up on it right away and felt some sort of fear prickle along his spine. 

He had to tread carefully. This was suddenly very, very dangerous terrirory. 

“Um…” 

Either way, he’d already gotten himself into a corner by saying that it was from Keith. Because it was indeed a weapon, if someone wanted to use it that way. And it meant _Keith_ had weapons and _Keith_ was potentially dangerous, which was exactly the sort of thing Lance wanted to avoid.

“N-not that one,” Lance lied. “That one’s… too small.”

“I don’t really think size--”

“Here!” Digging into the bag, Lance showed them his very own keys. “These jingle. Humans use them to open things.”

Lance was rushing, even though he was trying very hard to not let them notice. But the night before he’d spent too much time playing with his siblings, trying to catch up on the years he’d missed, and the bag was temporarily forgotten. Soon Lance would have to go back up to the surface. Somehow unnoticed, of course. His family would never let him go back; he still had to fill out that part of the plan. But first, he meant to get all these human items explained and out of the way.

If his family found something odd about the way Lance was acting, they didn’t mention it. Instead they passed the keys around like curious guppies exploring a new part of the ocean for the first time.

And so it went. One item at a time, even if it was faster than Lance would have liked, they went through each human item, each piece of treasure. He showed off the jewelry with unhidden pride. Because it was pretty, and from Keith, and it was _his._

It wasn’t until Lance was getting to the last contents of the bag that he had a brilliant plan. 

His fingers curled around one of the objects, about the size of his hand, artificially smooth and hard. Lance knew what it was the moment he touched it; he’d spent enough hours laboring over the thing to memorize the way it felt. 

The cursed Cube. 

It was wet from its journey from the cave to the open waters, but the colored squares still stuck to the side, puzzle still entirely unfinished.

Never in all his ages had Lance imagined he would be _grateful_ for the useless square contraption. (But he also never thought he would find a human mate. If anything, all this was teaching Lance to expect anything to happen at all times.) 

Pulling the Cube out of the bag, Lance decided it was time to move on to the next, recently created, part of his plan.

“This,” Lance said with a dramatic pause to get their attention, “is The Cube.”

“It sounds important,” Cordelia commented, eyeing the demon puzzle in Lance’s hands.

“It is,” Lance agreed. “Every human owns one. It’s… it’s a test. They have to use it every day. The Cube is almost impossible to get correct.”

This caught their interest.

“How does it work?” Llyr asked, a little suspicious. 

“It’s a test of human intelligence,” he explained. “They have to work to get each side of The Cube one single color. They move the rows and the little squares around to do it. But most die before their Cube can be completed. Those who do complete the Cube Test are held in the highest honor.”

At that point Lance was making things up out of the water, but he was good at storytelling when he had to be. And his family knew so little that he doubted they would even begin suspect it was a lie. 

“Even _I_ haven’t been able to finish The Cube,” he continued.

“No surprise there,” Maurea teased. Lance gave her his best wounded expression. 

“Then _you all_ should try it. See if it’s that easy.” With that, he pushed the puzzle into his sister’s hands.

“We will! And when we finish it, you have to do the fishing for nine sun cycles.”

“Fine,” Lance agreed, knowing he’d already won. 

His family, on the other hand, didn't know. Just like they also didn’t realize they just took his bait like a school of blind fish. 

With that, his family gathered together to go over the Cube puzzle. Lance waited for them to get entirely absorbed in their task, and when he was sure enough his absence wouldn’t be noticed (for a little while) he slipped away, heading quickly and quietly for the shore.

It was time to see his Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, guys! I was stuck for a while. But look! I got past it :D 
> 
> (Even if I had to go back to older chapters to remember Lance's siblings' names.)
> 
> I also started another fic. It's angsty.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, three days later!

There were no merfolk to be seen on the beach when Keith went down to the water the next day. But it had been three days, just like Lance assured, and Keith was going to do his best to trust that the merman would be there. 

He crossed the tide pools once the water had receded enough, feeling a little more comfortable as soon as he was alone. From there his next goal was Lance’s cave. Even if Lance didn't there first, he would undoubtedly come there to look for him eventually. And besides, Keith had grown attached to the place. It was dark and soothing, and felt almost magical.

(But maybe that was because a certain glowing Lance had made it his home, and Lance was the most magical thing he’d ever known.)

The cave was empty, and Keith made himself comfortable sitting by the water, knees drawn up to his chest and jacket pulled around himself. 

And then he waited.

Keith really was beginning to get tired of waiting. 

When Keith woke up that morning, he had nearly forgotten what day it was. Sleep didn’t come easy the night before, and it took a long time for it to find him. After prying open his eyes the next morning, he lay there, groggy and very much confused before it hit him.

_Three days. Lance._

That was when he shot up, throwing the blankets back as he lept out of the bed. Breakfast was forgotten; how could Keith even think of eating when he could see Lance again? He didn’t bother to brush his hair, and hardly spared time to change into his usual outfit before running out the door. 

And now here he was, sitting in the dark, Lance’s ammonite necklace waiting to be gifted in his fanny pack. (Only Keith called it “his bag” even though it, admittedly, wasn’t much of a bag. Everyone else called it a fanny pack.)

_Where’s Lance?_

Time passed slowly as Keith waited; he forgot his watch back at the house, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. He forgot it all the time. Every once in a while he would check his phone, but the screen was too bright even on its lowest setting for the darkness of the cave, and it made his eyes hurt. Checking his phone also just made the time go by even slower, as he was pulling it out every minute or so.

No. The best option was just to sit and wait. Be patient. It never was his forte. 

Eventually, a millennia later, Keith heard a faint splashing towards the mouth of the cave. His head turned to face the direction immediately, like a dog on alert. 

There was more splashing. And then Keith could see it; the faint, unmistakable glow of a particular merman’s scales and claws as he swam through the freezing water.

With a smile that he didn’t even try to hide, Keith got to his knees to lean over the edge. Below him, blue, bioluminescent scales and a mop of brown hair broke the surface of the water and he was greeted by Lance’s own grin.

“Keith,” the merman said. “I told you I would be back.”

For the first time in three days, Keith was able to breathe without that crushing feeling of anxiety gripping at his chest.

“You did,” he replied. “I was worried you wouldn’t.”

Pulling himself up onto the rock, Lance sat next to Keith with his tail trailing in the water like he had many times before. He looked exactly the same as he did when Keith saw him last; which, honestly, shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise. Three days might have felt like an eternity to Keith, but even he knew that was hardly any time at all. Not even a full week. 

Nevertheless, the sight of Lance unchanged was a sort of assurance. Despite the mishap (of that was what Keith could have called it; _disaster_ might have been a better word to use) with his sister, Lance was still Lance. 

Keith could feel Lance’s eyes on him. Studying him, like he was looking for any changes himself. Eventually he said, “Why would you ever think I would not return?”

“I-I don’t know,” Keith stammered. “I just thought..."

Now that he was actually sitting here, next to Lance, his worries seemed… stupid. Why would he ever doubt Lance would come back? Did he not trust him enough? Why was Keith beginning to second-guess himself now, too? 

The feeling of a clawed hand wrapping around his own brought Keith back to the real world. 

“Silly human,” Lance told him. 

“Sorry,” Keith muttered, foolishly. He felt his face heat up a little.

Lance played with his hand, turning it over so his palm was facing up. He ran a claw over the fabric of the glove and wound his fingers around Keith’s own. 

“I would never forget,” he reassured Keith. “You mean more to me than any silly human thing. You and the others. _You_ must not forget that.”

Keith felt warm, but it was different than the embarrassment from before. “I won’t,” he promised, and he meant it. Likewise, there wasn’t a single thing in his own collection that could ever equal to Lance.

If only Keith was able to tell him so. But he didn’t; he never was very good with words.

“I am overjoyed to see you again,” Lance continued to say. “But… I do not know how much time we will have during this visit.”

Lance said the words softly, like he was thinking something over. “But the useless color cube you gave me had a purpose, after all.”

Color…? And then Keith realized. He couldn’t hold back his laughter, embarrassment temporarily forgotten.

“You gave them the Rubix Cube?” 

Lance curled his lips in a smile and spoke with unashamed pride. “I told them it was a very important human thing, and I left them to complete it. They did not even notice I left. But I do not know how long it will be until they realize I am gone.”

“You had to sneak out,” Keith said, realizing. The words were more of a statement than a question. 

Lance nodded. 

“Yes,” he replied. “They do not like humans. But… I am sure you noticed already. They are afraid of your kind, and so they are afraid of you, too. They want to take me with them when they leave.”

“Are you… gonna go with them?” Keith sounded more nervous than he liked. 

“I wish to stay,” Lance said. “But they will not listen. And… I have missed them. A… a part of me also wishes to go. They will leave soon, regardless.”

The words settled like a stone in the pit of Keith’s stomach. He was right. Everything he spent the last three days stressing over was true after all. Of course he was right. Keith shouldn't be surprised. Who would ever want to stay with him? No one, of course--

He forced himself to take a breath. 

Lance seemed to pick up on his distress. “There is still a little time,” he assured. “A decision does not need to be made quite yet. And I have a plan, if I can convince them to remain here long enough. I want my family to meet you and the others soon. I do not want them to be afraid anymore. Maybe it will convince them to stay.”

“W… wait. What?"

\----

Lance thought Keith’s eyes were going to pop out of his skull.

“Y-you want me to… to meet them?” It sounded like he was choking on his words. “You want to take me home to see them, like in a lame sitcom where the dad scares off some girl’s boyfriend by cleaning his shotgun in the kitchen--”

“I do not understand most of what you are saying,” Lance interrupted, because Keith looked like a fish out of water; like he couldn't get enough air into his lungs. It was slightly concerning. 

“They’re going to eat me alive,” Keith said. “Probably literally, which is painful and gross. Are you sure this is a good idea?” 

Squeezing his hand, Lance leaned forward. “It will work. It has to. My family will learn that do not need to be afraid of you. And then… maybe they will stay. I will not let them eat you.”

The idea of Keith becoming dinner was altogether unpleasant. And the possibility of his plan going wrong was too possible for him to feel comfortable, but it was the best Lance could think of on such short notice. He was going to have to pray to the sea gods that it would work. 

“...Are you sure?”

A pause. “Mostly.”

Keith sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to hope for the best.”

“Trust me,” Lance said. He poked Keith’s cheek gently with one claw, very careful not to break the skin. “I have not let you down yet, have I?”

“You almost murdered me in this exact cave when we first met, so I’m not sure.”

And just like that, the mood lightened a little, like a breeze sweeping the morning fog over the ocean away. Lance smiled and this time it came easier, though he tried his best to look wounded. 

“That does not count! _You_ were the one intruding.”

“I’ve been here a thousand times before then and nothing happened,” Keith retorted. “Besides, murder is still murder.”

The faux argument went on like that for some time. It didn’t completely push away the anxiety that both of them were feeling, but Lance thought that it did just enough for them to forget about it for a little while. He never realized exactly how much he missed these visits, full of meaningless conversations and bantering, until suddenly he had to go without them. Lance knew he was in trouble.

“While I’ve been stuck on land, what trouble were you getting into?” Keith asked finally. 

Lance smiled. “My plan,” he said. 

“Are you ever going to explain that? Other than the whole meeting thing? Or…”

“I have been showing them my collection,” Lance explained. He shifted around on the rock until he was in a more comfortable position, lying in his back and using his arms as a sort of cushion. 

“Your human stuff?”

“No, the bones of dead fish that I secretly hoard. _Yes,_ the human things.” Keith rolled his eyes when Lance glanced at him. 

“And the gifts?” Keith asked.

Lance twirled the chain of his glowing necklace around one finger. “Yes. I am the proudest of those.”

This answer seemed to please Keith. He smiled, but it was small and mostly to himself. 

“My goal is to slowly make my family less afraid,” Lance continued. “If I show them things before I show them you, it might work.”

_Might. Maybe._ Lance was saying those words more than he wanted to. 

Suddenly Keith was sitting up a little bit straighter and fumbling with the pack at his side. Lance watched, intrigued. “What are you doing?” 

His plan didn’t scare Keith off, did it?

“I almost forgot,” Keith said, and then he had something in his hand. “Maybe something to show them next. Another gift.”

He held it out, letting the thing dangle from his hand so it could be seen in full. Lance sat up almost immediately. 

It was another necklace, different than the jewelry Keith had brought before. This one wasn’t quite as shiny, but his eyes caught on the pendant hanging in the center almost instantly.

It was beautiful; polished and gleaming, an ammonite sitting proudly on a string dotted here and there with shining beads. He wrapped the cord around his hand and looked the necklace over. 

“It is beautiful,” he said. Human jewelry always fascinated him. There were just _so many_ different kinds of gemstones and jewels that could be found on land. 

Keith ran a hand through his hair. “I-I’m glad you like it. I was a little nervous about it,” he admitted. 

Lance smiled at him. “I’ll wear it with the others, and show them another of the wonderful things humans can create,” he promised, and added it to his collection. It rested against his chest next to the glowing necklace, a little weight of reassurance. 

Now Lance had to give his gift too, as was custom. In between the time spent with his family, he’d been thinking it over, trying to decide what the best thing to bring him was. He didn’t want to give him anything from his human collection, because Keith had plenty of human things already Lance only wanted to give him the best. Even after searching the sand, he hadn’t been able to come up with any sea glass. Or another full sand dollar, or an abalone shell, which would have been excellent. He was ashamed to come back to the cave empty-handed. 

After looking his human over for a moment, Lance had an idea. A brilliant idea. He should have thought of it before.

“I have your gift, too,” Lance said finally. “But you have to close your eyes.”

Keith looked at him strangely, but Lance refused to waver.

“Close your eyes,” he repeated.

“...Alright.” Keith did.

After making sure Keith’s eyes really _were_ closed all the way by waving a hand close to his face, Lance shifted so he was sitting a little closer. 

“One more rule. Do not move.”

“Don’t wha--”

Before Keith was able to finish his sentence, Lance drew in a deep breath and dove forward, hands on Keith’s shoulders, both for his support and to keep Keith still.

And then he kissed him.

It wasn’t very long, and Lance couldn’t compare it to anything else because he had never _really_ kissed anyone until that moment. But Keith kissed him back, a little eager, and that was much better than him pulling away. And Lance enjoyed it, even if it might have been bad.

“There,” Lance said finally after he leaned back to let Keith draw air into his lungs again. “That was my gift. Well… that, and my heart as well. But you have had that for a while now.”

Keith stared, his eyes wide, and then he began to smile. “That’s a relief. You-you've had mine for a long time, too.” 

Sea gods, Lance could have kissed him a second time.

“...But I am really nervous about meeting your family. I still think they’re going to eat me.”

The words made Lance laugh, and then he really did kiss him again. It was just as good as before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished writing this on my lunch break at work and had to struggle to not smile like an idiot in the middle of the break room.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith doesn't like dressing up

“I-I don’t… I don’t think this is going to work.”

Shiro said nothing as he ran a comb through Keith’s hair. 

“No, seriously,” Keith went on. “They’re… fish people. They probably don’t care what my hair looks like. They’re underwater all the time, it’s not like they would know--”

Setting the comb aside, Shiro tried to flatten down the bit of hair that refused to obey. “First impressions count,” was all he said.

“Yeah, but I just _said_ \--”

“You showing up to meet Lance’s family in clothes that haven’t been washed in days and messy hair probably isn’t the best idea, regardless of whether or not they care. Don’t you think? What if they _eat_ you?”

“They’d just spit him back out,” Pidge said. “I'm pretty sure he wouldn't taste any good.”

At his side, Hunk peered over Shiro’s shoulder. His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Holy quiznak. I didn’t know you had anything in your closet other than that red jacket.”

Keith glanced down at the ridiculous getup Shiro had forced him into. It hadn’t been Keith’s at first; not really. After he went back home to tell Shiro how his latest meeting with Lance went (skimming over the kiss, of course; that was for Keith and Lance only) Shiro dragged him over to the cafe so quickly Keith thought the world would end if they didn’t get there as soon as possible.

They’d ordered two milkshakes and fries to dip them in, and while Allura watched Keith eagerly submerge two fried potatoes in his dessert (barely able to hide the disgust on her face) she listened to Shiro’s chopped, simplified version of what happened in the cave.

“Meeting the parents?” she had asked eventually. 

“More like the whole family,” Keith grumbled.

Across the table, Shiro asked hopefully, “I don’t suppose you know where we could get anything nice for him to wear?”

Keith was so startled he accidentally inhaled his fries and almost died on them. Part of him wished he had. “ _What?_ ”

“You should at least be dressed nicely,” Shiro insisted. “Gotta impress them, and we all know that isn’t going to be easy. But a nice outfit might help…”

“They’re merpeople. I don’t even think they know what pants are.”

Allura laughed. “It’ll take a lot more than nice clothes, but that’s a start,” she commented. “What price range are you thinking of?”

“Zero, because I’m not dressing up,” was what Keith started to say. But Shiro kicked him in the shin under the table only part way through his sentence, and instead it sounded like “Zero, because I--ow! I-I… I mean… uh… cheap. I guess?”

“In Altea?” Allura responded. “Everyone depends on tourism here; the prices are jacked sky-high. You’d have to go an hour inland to find anything decent and ‘cheap.’”

“I make minimum wage.”

The cafe owner patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Coran has something. He always does.”

And in the end, Coran--eager as always--scoured his home for something Keith could borrow. Keith followed along with him, of course. 

“Something that probably won’t get ruined if it’s wet,” Keith had suggested.

Eventually Coran dumped a pile of his clothes in Keith’s arms; black slacks, a dress white shirt, and a red tie.

“This should do nicely,” Coran said. “I wore them once, though I can’t quite recall when… ah, well, nevermind. Don’t worry about getting them back in a hurry--as a matter of fact, if they fit well enough, you can keep them, my boy. I forgot I even had them in the first place…”

Coran rambled after that, recalling memories of events he attended while wearing “an outfit almost like that, but not quite, you see.” After all the work he had done to dig up the clothes for him, Keith figured listening to his stories was only fair. And then he thanked him and went home.

“Got them from Coran,” Keith said eventually when he remembered Hunk was still looking at him. 

Only he wasn’t really looking at him. Not directly. Hunk’s eyes were focused on the tie around Keith’s neck, brows furrowed in confusion. 

“That looks terrible.”

Keith couldn’t get mad at Hunk, because it was true. He didn’t know how to wear a tie; the situation just never came up. Not even at the funeral services for either of his parents. So he just wrapped it around his neck and tied it like a shoelace, and called it good.

Besides, Lance was a _merman_ and Keith was gonna go meet his _merish_ family. Who don’t even know what ties are, probably. (Keith was going to keep insisting on this fact no matter how much everyone else seemed to be ignoring it.)

Pidge tugged on one end of the tie. “God, you’re hopeless,” she said when the red fabric came undone. “I don’t know what Lance sees in you.”

“Neither do I,” Keith admitted. 

Hunk redid the tie in a Windsor knot; or at least, what Keith suspected was a Windsor knot. It was a knot nonetheless, and a nice one, as far as knots went. Where Hunk learned tie ties would probably remain a mystery forever.

“What about you guys?” Keith argued. 

Shiro tilted his head to the side in question, giving up on his hair. “What do you mean?”

With one hand, Keith tried to tug on the tie before Hunk slapped it away. “You’re all coming with me. Shouldn't you guys be dressed up too and looking like idiots?”

Almost immediately, Pidge shook her head in denial. “No way. This is your thing--”

“Lance said he wants them to meet _all_ of you.”

“I… I don’t quite think it’s necessary,” Shiro said, “After all--”

“‘First impressions count,’” Keith quoted. “After all, we don’t want them to get offended and eat you, do we?”

Shiro looked positively wounded at his own words being used against him, and he tried to talk his way out of it. But his efforts were in vain; Keith wasn’t having any of it. He ignored all of their protests and snapped right back with arguments of his own.

“I’m not leaving this house until you all suffer with me. No, Hunk, I technically don't have to do anything. Shiro, I’m legally an adult and therefore you can’t force me. If I have to do this, then so do you, Pidge.”

The argument went on, but Keith was nothing if not stubborn, and eventually they caved. He got a great amount of satisfaction at them trying to dig up anything formal to throw on, leaving to search through their own homes and eventually coming back with the best they could do.

When the chaos was over, all four of them were dressed nicer than they probably ever had in years, equally awkward and uncomfortable. If Keith _really_ had to say there was one more upset about this than the others though, it was probably Pidge. She hated formal clothing even more than Keith did and refused to stop pulling at the collar of her mint-green blouse because “the lace itches, Shiro, I don’t care if it stretches the shirt out, I want to tear it off.”

At long last, Keith was willing to leave the house. If Lance’s merfamily were going to eat him, at least he would die looking good, right?

Keith really hoped the day wouldn't end like that, though; it would suck. A lot.

Somehow all four of them managed to make it to the beach clean. (Or at least as clean as you could when the wind was blowing sand everywhere, and the sand stuck to everything.)

“Remember the plan?” Shiro asked after they were sure Lance’s tiny beach was empty. 

“Hide behind the rocks, wait for the signal,” Keith said. Lance had explained it all to him when he visited last; they had to be careful about this. One wrong move and Lance’s family could decide to leave and take Lance with them. Or the merpeople might try to kill them, which was only slightly less terrifying.

It wasn’t difficult to find a hiding spot, given that the beach was littered with huge rocks. What _was_ difficult, on the other hand, was not getting his clothes ruined. Staying close to the rocks as possible was probably the best way to stay out of sight, but they were covered in barnacles and seaweed and mussels. Keith got as close as he dared.

After that it was just a waiting game. He glanced behind him every once in a while, but the other three were nowhere to be seen. Keith hoped they were having the same difficulties he was; they deserved it.

The watch he actually remembered for once told him that fifteen minutes passed before anything happened.

When Keith dared to peak his head around to see if Lance was there yet for the last time, he didn't actually expect to see the merman. But there he was, down on the sand, a bright blue against the dark tan of the beach. And he wasn’t alone. 

Lance was the only one on the beach, but in the water there were five others ( _Five,_ Keith thought, _why the hell does Lance have such a big family, they’re gonna tear all of us apart and we won’t stand a chance, this was a bad idea, this was a terrible idea, even worse than that time Pidge tried to--_ )

Down on the beach, Lance reached up with one clawed hand and pointed to the right, in the direction of the cave he called home.

That was it. There was no going back now. 

Keith forced himself to take a deep breath and stood up a little straighter. He tugged on his shirt to adjust it a little, hoped Lance wouldn’t let his family eat him, and stepped out from where he’d been crouching behind the rock.

\----

Lance was tearing into a fish, trying very hard to avoid looking any of them in the eye.

“You want us to go with you to the surface?” Maurea said.

He shoved a bit of fish into his mouth. “Um… yeah.”

It wasn’t that the request was odd; when he was with them before, he went to the surface with his siblings all the time. The rule was one that his parents enforced, believing that they would be fine and safe as long as two of them went together. Lance was just nervous about asking; only _he_ knew there was another motive behind it, and he was paranoid that they would somehow see through his plan.

But Maurea only thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “I don’t see why not,” she said eventually.

Llyr didn’t notice anything suspicious, either. “The surface is boring,” was all he said, and then added, “but if you really want to, I suppose we could.”

When Lance brought it up to Cordelia, she agreed too, even though she said that it meant he owed her a favor later. Lance said he would hold himself to it. Besides, if his family murdered him after his secret was out it wouldn't matter anyway. Anything that would get them all to the beach. His parents, of course, went with them. 

Lance was glad it had been easy enough to convince them. He just hoped everything went well.

His family was interested enough in the human things he brought from the cave; the cube puzzle still had them confused when he returned from his visit with Keith. 

Perplexed and more than a little frustrated with the cursed thing, they promptly shoved it back into his hands and demanded that it be fed to the sharks.

“Although not even a shark would want to touch it,” Cordelia said. 

In the end, it turns out they didn’t even notice he was gone. Lance returned with a handful of fish and some mussels he pried from the cave wall anyway as an excuse for his disappearance, and all was well. 

But it wasn’t going to be so easy this time. 

Once Lance had them all agreeing to come with him up to the surface (and the beach, but they didn’t know that yet) he lead them up to the dry air. He spent most of the short journey trying to figure out the smoothest way to introduce them to the humans that were waiting. Now, Lance wasn’t an idiot. He knew that there was no smooth way it could be done; it was going to suck no matter what. Worse than an octopus and its eight tentacles, probably. A thousand times worse.

But Lance could try. And that was better than nothing. It had to be. 

The other day, when Keith and Lance met on the beach, they settled on a signal. Lance would give it when he was ready for Keith and his friends to meet his family. It was a gesture in the direction of his cave; easy enough to slip into a conversation with his siblings and parents, and clear enough for the humans to see. 

Lance hoped they found hiding spots by now. If they were in sight by the time he got to the surface, his family would either drag Lance back down and refuse to come up, or Maurea would recognize Keith and try to kill him.

Again.

And that was _another_ thing Lance had to worry about. She had seen Keith already, and knew that there was… something going on between them. It was painfully obvious. Lance didn’t doubt how willing she would be to take a chance at it again once he was in her sight.

Really, they were putting more in the hands of luck than Lance was comfortable with. But it wasn’t like they had much of a choice.

Sometimes you just had to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and dive down into the dark water and hope nothing happened. This was one of those times. 

When Lance broke through the surface of the water, he could breathe at least a little bit easier. There was no sign of Keith, or Pidge-Pigeon, or Hunk, or Shiro. That much went well, at least. They were hiding behind the rocks, hopefully, just like he and Keith planned.. He made his way to land like he’d done a thousand times before.

“Here it is,” Lance said once the others joined him. “This is home. Well… kind of. I mean, it was where I stayed. Llyr already knows.”

Lance hoped his voice didn’t betray the fluttering anxiety in his stomach.

“It was awful,” Llyr grumbled. “Cold and dark.”

Lance shot him a look. “The _cave_ is,” he emphasized. “But the rest of the beach is really nice.” 

They listened while he went on about his makeshift home (that he had grown rather fond of over the years.) If Lance had to be honest, most of what he said was pointless rambling. Words to fill up space while he scrambled desperately for a way to slip in the “by the way, I’m courting a human.”

Well. After a while, Lance decided he was done procrastinating. It was going to happen anyway, and they might as well get it over with.

“The cave is over there. And isn’t even that bad. I… I’m pretty fond of it, to tell you the truth. Lots of good things happened there. It… it was were I met someone. I want you to meet him. And his friends.”

At the beginning of his speech, Lance pointed in the direction of the cave, clear for all to see. It was the signal.

He watched the reactions of his family, trying to notice any difference in their expressions, and in the end it turned out he didn't need to. He could have seen them in the dead of night without any moon, they were so clear. 

Keith must have seen the signal, because all of a sudden his mother let out a gasp. 

“Children,” she said, even though all of them were full-grown, “get behind us.” At her side, Lance’s father was already beating his teeth and looked as dangerous as a lionfish. 

Llyr and Cordelia shared nearly identical reactions; stunned surprise and an inability to move. 

Maurea was an entirely different situation.

“ _Him,_ ” she hissed venomously. “Lance, I swear on all the seven seas--”

Lance cut her off. “Maura, please. Don’t do anything, I need you to promise me you’ll listen!”

“I should have known,” Maurea spat. “The moment you leapt in front of him that time, it was clear as day. I can’t believe this. I’ll tear his throat out.”

This was what Lance had been afraid of. But she hadn’t made a move to do the throat-tearing, at least not yet. Lance still had a little time.

He glanced over his shoulder. Keith stood behind him, still a few yards away. The human clothing he wore was different than usual, but he looked nice, and his hair wasn’t a mess for once. Even in the middle of all this chaos, Lance had to admit that he liked it. 

Keith also looked like he was scared for his life. It was probably an appropriate feeling.

“ _Stay there_ ,” Lance called out in English. “ _I will tell you when to come closer_.”

Keith nodded once, and then relayed the message to the others behind him.

“You speak their language!” Lance’s mother sounded horrified. “My little guppy, what has happened to you?”

“He’s trying to court a human.” That was Maurea. Her tone was cold and as sharp as a broken shell. 

Lance floundered for words to say, for some sort of rephrasing he could do to patch up what was already beginning to fall apart. 

“Please,” he said, his voice beginning to border on frantic. “You have to let me explain--”

Behind him, he heard the crouching of sand, and then there was a hand on his shoulder that shouldn't be there.

If Lance wasn’t so busy trying to keep Maurea (or his father, who also looked ready to drag himself out of the water in a second) from murder, he would have strangled Keith himself, and saved them all the trouble.

_Why can’t he just listen?!_

“ _Um…_ ” Keith said, awkwardly in his human language, despite Lance’s family not being able to understand him. “ _My name is Keith. I’m in love with your son._ ” 

Yup. Lance gave up all hope. His human was going to die, and Lance probably was going too, also.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess who isn't dead?
> 
> it's me.
> 
> unfortunately.
> 
> I'm so, so, so sorry, guys. This hasn't been cancelled, I promise!! Thank you for everyone who's still around and reading and commenting. You guys make my day. I really appreciate it. <3

**Author's Note:**

> Since most of the story happens at the beach, I felt it important to tell you that the Altea in this universe is based mostly off a costal town I like to visit often that's only an hour's drive or so from where I live. The beach where the story happens is like a big combination of many different beaches the town has. You can look up images of Lincoln City, Oregon if you're curious.
> 
> EDIT: 
> 
> I just made a Tumblr post with lots of photo references for the setting! You can find it [here](https://aeruh.tumblr.com/post/163614962729/tides-setting)
> 
> Also, feel free to scream at me on there. I won't bite :)


End file.
